Sales Rank: 3185; Release Date: 08 March, 2004


Features:

Rinse and scrub with plain water

Bakes crisp, thin-crusted bread

Use also for poultry, meat, vegetable dishes

Measures 14-1/2 by 5-1/8 by 5-1/2 inches

Heavy stoneware

Average Rating:
Rating: - Great for Baking Sourdough Bread
When you bake bread using only a sourdough starter you get a dough that is more relaxed than dough made with commercial yeast, it wants to rise out as well as up. This pan is the best I have found for baking with sourdough because it not only supports the sides of the dough (so it rises up and not over the sides of the pan) but gives it a fabulous crust.

To prevent sticking you will have to *really* grease both the top and bottom the first several times you use it, also genrously sprinkle the the bottom with cornmeal. After the pan is seasoned a light greasing will do, and once it is *well* seasoned you often won't have to grease it at all. I always lightly sprinkle the bottom with cornmeal though.

One important thing to remember is that you can't wash this with soap, the stoneware will absob it and make your bread taste funny. Most of the time all you need to do is dust the cornmeal out, but every now and then (and if something sticks) you can soak it in plain hot water.

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Rating: - Excellent bread baker
I just took the first loaf of bread out of the oven made in this bread baker. It's awesome. If you love good food and freshly made bread, buy it - you won't be sorry with the end result, yummy soft-on-the-inside but crusty-on-the-outside homemade french bread.

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Rating: - Results OK
I live in Brooklyn, and artisinal breads could not be hotter now. I do all of my cooking from scratch, including hand rolling pastas, whipping cream with a wisk, etc. I thought this clay would make up for my non "professional" oven. You can make better baguettes (which I thought was French Bread) by turning your oven up to 500 degrees with a metal pan in the bottom and letting it get hot. Then mold dough into shape and score dough to put on rack over heated pan. Fill this pan with hot water and mist the sides of your oven, every two minutes for ten minutes. Take water pan out and reduce temperature to 400 for 15-25 minutes depending on preference/altitude etc. This pan makes the final rise easy, and the bread is decent; but you won't be wearing a barret and whistling "Gigi" since the result is a crispy bread which looks more like something from a California kitchen.