Baking Bread in a Cast Iron Dutch Oven

I have to admit, although we enjoy it we’ve never made bread before.  We asked around and mostly the advice that we received involved just buying a bread maker and following the instructions.  While not particularly in the mood to spend money on a bread maker and wanting to keep things a little more rustic we opted to google simple recipe’s that would allow us to bake some amazing bread.  What we found is linked here and did not disappoint, I’ve also taken the liberty to link what we’ve used on my Amazon store so please check that out if you get a chance.  As a final aside before getting into the article, a cast iron Dutch Oven is an incredibly versatile piece of cooking kit, we love our cast iron and should the worst case happen we’d be able to cook in almost any condition over almost any heat source.  Truly cost effective and bulletproof cooking kit that will last a lifetime.

Recipe to amazing Artisan Bread  

Lodge Dutch Oven (Link to other Dutch Ovens with no feet is here)

Red Mill Artisan Bread Flour

Fleishmann’s Instant Yeast

Prep Phase:

Since this was new for both of us it came down to more than just reading the recipe, everything involved second guesses but my girlfriend held it under control and kept me on pace.  We assembled all of our products, mixed everything nicely in a bowl and then covered it so it could rise.  We also heated the dutch oven inside our oven per the directions.  As a note ours has the feet on it, probably not the best for the oven application but it worked out fine.

We didn’t use the pastry flour but thought to include in the pic

All mixed up and ready to go 

Baking Phase:

A few hours later the dutch oven was piping hot out of the oven and ready to receive the dough, which had risen nicely.  We (and by that I mean her) added some flour and flipped it, got the parchment paper ready and set it inside the pan for movement to the oven.

Doesn’t look like much, does it?

All ready to go into the oven

Our oven is probably 25 years old, so cut me some slack

The Final Result:

Who doesn’t love butter?

Fresh out of the oven

Literally restaurant quality

The final result was not only amazing, it was incredible.  For those of you who have made bread for a long time you are probably laughing at us but hey,  first time for everything and this turned out way better than we expected.  We uncovered the bread and brushed it with butter, then back in the oven for 12 minutes to get that golden brown.  Delicious!  I suppose from a preparedness standpoint it’s always great to learn new skills, even if they do not involve firearms or bugout bags.  From a SHTF perspective, as long as one has the (reasonably priced) supplies and some heat bread can be on the table for a long long time to accompany all the freeze dried meals.