Hi all. I'm a fairly new bread baker at home here and I'd like to use this old stoneware pan I bought from a second hand store for 5 dollars. It is a regular size bread pan size I'd say. I am making just a regular white bread in it . I have greased it with oleo and I was wondering ..... look for the question mark......
I mixed my dough.
Let it ferment at 85 degrees for almost 1 hour.
punched it down lightly a few times and folded it over 3 times.
I'm waiting on this 2nd rise.
Do I preheat the stoneware pan and roll a loaf of preshaped dough into it and put it in the oven to finish the bake ?
Or should I put the dough into a cold stoneware pan and put it in the oven and turn it on 400 and go from there?
I do use a thermometer stuck in the loaf also for final temp on baking.
Thanks in advance,
Rick
I can't imagine trying to put a proofed dough into a standard loaf pan. They're meant to have to dough shaped and put into the greased, floured pan for the final proof.
If you're worried the stoneware will insulate the loaf, well , it might. Or it might be totally fine. King Arthur flour tested the cold Dutch oven method and didn't find a difference. I'd put it on the bottom rack though, personally.
If you do a search here on Sassafrass, you will read that some preheated it and put room temp, or even cold dough, into it and put it back in the oven. Others put it in the oven cold. Some reported that their Sassafrass developed a crack over time, and since I am a chicken, I assumed it was from thermal shock, and so I never preheated mine.
This is from Sassafrass, and they suggest you do not add very cold food and avoid exposure to extreme temps to avoid thermal shock, but does not list temps https://sassafrasstore.com/use-care/
This is for the bread dome http://fantes.net/manuals/sassafras-bread-dome-instructions.pdf and it advises to avoid thermal shock. Here is the instruction from breadtopia on cold and preheating, they suggest that you avoid preheating over 300 F https://breadtopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ClocheCare2016-5x8-1up.pdf I just went back to the Breadtopia site, and they have a manual for the oblong baker, and they say that can be preheated hotter https://breadtopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/OblongClocheCareFullPage.pdf
So it is up to you. If you are worried about breaking it, I would be cautious about preheating it, then loading cold dough.
I put the dough into a pan that was maybe 120 degrees temp after it was proofed. While the oven was heating to 400. Than I put it on the bottom rack and it turned out good. I scored the bread 3 times diagonally across the top. But I still had a side blowout but not too bad.
Making another one tonight and proofing this one in the pan and going in cold.
Rick