Ready to bake homemade bread in your own kitchen? This no knead Dutch oven bread is your BFF. You just need three ingredients to make this delicious recipe, and I’ll take you through it step by step. So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to get some delicious carbs in your life.
Because this beautiful loaf — this glorious no knead Dutch oven bread — might just be the very best bread I’ve ever baked. Seriously. And it also happens to be one of the easiest ever, too. And I’m going to show you, step by step, just how to do it.
First things first: The reason I believe this may be the very best bread I’ve ever baked (the method for which, by the way, originated from the great Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery) is three-fold:
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Let the bread cool for just a few minutes — basically until you can handle it without burning your fingerprints off — and then slice away.
Suggestions for how to enjoy no-knead Dutch oven bread: As grilled cheese, dipped in soup, as garlic bread, spread with peanut butter (and jelly!), cut up into croutons, ripped apart and shoved right into face, etc. etc. I have done/will do all of the above.
How To Make Dutch Oven Bread
Of course, if you also need someone to come over and assist you in eating all of this gorgeous and delicious loaf of bread you just baked, I’m your leading lady. But if you’re anything like me, I have a feeling you won’t need any help.
P.S. Ready for your next bread baking adventure? Try my Sourdough 101 series, which takes you step by step through the entire process of making homemade sourdough at home, from starter to loaf. Check ou this Banana Bread Recipe for my other favorite bread!Learning how to bake bread in a Dutch oven is the first task many undertake when embarking on their bread baking journey at home—myself included. Introducing steam in the home oven—a beneficial component in bread baking—can be a challenge, and a sealed pot makes this process simple and unassuming. During the initial stages of baking, steam is released from the dough into the sealed pot, which traps it and keeps the dough moist. This humid environment allows the bread to rise high and promotes a crispy and shiny crust.
A Dutch oven helps to mimic the environment many professional bakers have in a bakery: a moisture-sealed chamber with intense and (mostly) even radiative heat. The Dutch oven offers ample thermal mass to ensure a temperature-stable baking environment with its thick cast iron walls. Additionally, the sealed interior traps steam, a beneficial component of baking bread. Moisture in the oven during the beginning part of baking allows your bread to rise fully, deepens the crust color, and finally, adds a level of shininess to the exterior.
Easy Dutch Oven Rustic Bread
As with most things in baking, you might have to adjust the baking duration and oven temperature to suit your environment. See my guide to baking bread at high altitude if you're a high altitude baker.
I've tested using a cold Dutch oven, and I do not get the same oven spring and final loaf volume as when I bake bread dough in a preheated Dutch oven.
When your loaf is finished baking, use a pair of oven-safe gloves to carefully reach down into the pot to remove the bread. The crust will be fully hardened off by this time, so there's no worry of collapse.
No Knead Bread Recipe
Additionally, if you baked your bread dough inside the Dutch oven on a piece of parchment paper as I recommend here, you can lift the corners of the parchment paper to remove the baked loaf of bread.
Without steam in the oven during the first part of baking (when oven spring occurs), the rapidly expanding dough quickly forms a hard crust on the exterior. This early crust formation limits optimal oven spring and will hinder overall loaf volume, resulting in squat and dense loaf.
Conversely, when you provide adequate steam the exterior of the dough remains moist and supple, allowing it to expand and stretch further before starches gel and the crust hardens and sets.
What Size Dutch Oven Do I Need To Bake Bread?
It doesn't require a lot of steam to provide benefit. When the pot is sealed during the first 20 minutes of baking, the moisture escaping the dough provides the right environment to encourage optimal loaf volume.
—the contrast is striking. Add to this a subtle catch of light and shininess: your mouth starts watering even before the intoxicating aroma surrounds you.
As Jeffrey Hamelman states in his book BREAD, the reduced temperature on the exterior of the loaf allows the enzymatic activity to continue for longer. This activity, which is the same activity that's been happening throughout the entire fermentation process, continues to “unlock” sugars which add to crust coloring during baking.
No Knead Dutch Oven Bread Recipe
A well-steamed oven also promotes gelatinization1: in the presence of heat starch molecules on the exterior of the dough begin to absorb available moisture (hello, steam), start to swell, and eventually pop to form a thin liquid layer (starch gel). This layer finally bakes hard and becomes a thin and crispy exterior, with a subtle shine.
As we discussed earlier, steam inside the closed environment of the Dutch oven settles on the outside of the dough, forming a thin layer that prevents the temperature from reaching too high too fast. This helps ensure the exterior of your loaf doesn't darken before you finish baking the interior.
With all these benefits, baking in a sealed pot is a good idea. However, there are some issues with the method, the biggest being a thicker, and possibly burned bottom crust. Let's take a look at a few ways to help mitigate this issue.
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I get this question often: “when I bake bread in my Dutch oven, the bottom burns and is very thick; how can I fix this?” In my experience, baking in a Dutch oven will typically produce a slightly darker bottom, even with the suggestions below. However, employing one or more of these will help reduce this darkening significantly.
The first important thing is to ensure you are not baking with your Dutch oven on a baking stone/Baking Steel. When the oven has finished preheating, the stone
The first approach is to modify your baking temperatures. If you find the bottom crust burns or becomes too thick, reduce the preheat temperature. For example, some of my recipes here call for a 45-minute preheat at 450°F (230°C); you could drop this down to 425°F (218°C) for the preheat.
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Most ovens have a bottom heating element that can provide far too much heat on the bottom of your dough, especially if you place the rack too close. An insulator, such as a baking sheet or stone, can provide enough thermal mass between the heating element and your dough. This will help insulate your dough when the heating element kicks on, which happens often.
Place a rack on the bottom of your oven, and then place another one or two rungs up above that. Place your baking surface on the bottom rack. Then, use the rack above to hold your Dutch oven when baking.
Additionally, a thin aluminum baking sheet or even a single layer of aluminum foil placed underneath the Dutch oven will help to reflect most of the infrared heat from the bottom of your home oven.
Artisan Dutch Oven Semolina Bread
Coarsely ground corn (polenta or corn grits) works exceptionally well to provide a thin layer of insulation between your dough and the Dutch oven. This layer helps keep the dough from sticking to the cast iron but also lifts it up to prevent burning.
Sprinkle a generous amount of coarse corn onto the pan after it's preheated and just before you turn your dough onto the pan
If you frequently mill your flour and have a sifting screen, save the wheat germ or bran you sift out of your flour. These coarse particles (which you can always add to the dough later) perform a similar function to the corn.
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The image above shows the large germ/bran particles I've sifted out with my sifting screen. The fine, high-extraction flour falls through my screen into a bowl which I then use in the dough mix. Then, I collect these larger bits to either add to the dough as porridge or use to coat the bottom as insulation.
As you might have noticed in my Beginner's Sourdough recipe, I typically use parchment paper (I love this natural, non-stick option) to help drag dough into the blisteringly hot Dutch oven. As I describe in that recipe post, lay parchment paper over your proofing basket containing the dough and cut it to fit. Invert the basket on a pizza peel, slide the parchment into the preheated Dutch oven, score the dough, and bake.
In this approach, you will follow the same process as before, except you'll layer two pieces of parchment on
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