April 25, 2007 - 8:16am
Electric v.s. gas oven
Good morning!
I have been asking myself this question, "Why do the loaves I see pics of look more rustic than mine?". I'm still not sure, but I have a feeling that using an electric oven often creates a dry atmosphere? Soo thaen I began to use humidity to fix the bland looking loaf problem.
This brings me to my origanal thought about oven results when baking bread. Do gas ovens produce a better loking loaf of bread? By thee way, just so I am understood, I have been baking hearth breads from the BB by Rose Levy. If neither the oven or the bread recipe are the problem, what should I be doing to get better results?
Thanks-Chuppy
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Chuppy,
I have been happy with my electric oven, but I have never baked with a gas oven. One thing I like about the electric, it has a vent hole in the back burner. I use one of those plug in steam generators, that my wife bought for me at Kohls for $30. I shoot the steam through this hole at the beginning of the bake. I preheat the oven for an hour at 450 degrees with my baking stone in the oven. I load the bread onto the stone, and shoot the steam in the vent hole every minute for the first 5 minutes. Also after 5 minutes, I turn the temperature down to 425, and bake for another 25 to 30 minutes. The steam seems to help with the oven spring. I hope this helps.
Good Luck,
Dutchbaker
I am sorry I cannot fully answer the question posted being that I have only ever had electric ovens. That being said, I have made soft crusts, and crunchy, cracklin crusts, with only changin up temps. and adding steam vs. no steam.
Dutchbaker, I am very intrigued with your kohls item. I too have a vent hole from my oven that comes out facing my cooktop. I currently cover the hole with a wet towel, then open the door to mist in water via plant spray bottle. I get o.k. steam, but lose quite abit do to the door being open during this process. Could you please tell me a little bit more about what you have. I have a Kohls near me and would like to check into it. To be honest I never even thought of trying to get the mist into the oven through this hole. Brilliant........
TT