baking bread

agree soda bread is mad easy and good to do

I made this buttermilk cluster as two loaves instead of a pan of rolls -- very nice, fine-textured crumb, better for sandwiches than the italian loaves I'd been making. And like all homemade bread, it makes great toast.

for my chi-town peeps i am involved in teaching bread classes as part of http://www.sourflour.org/chicago/

How important is putting bread dough into a preheated oven? I use the oven as a proofing chamber because the kitchen stays pretty cold and the pilot light keeps the oven warm but not too hot. When it's time to bake, could I just turn on the oven without taking the dough out? I'm proofing it in the dutch oven that it bakes in.

there's a discussion her
ehttp://community.kingarthurflour.com/content/starting-cold-oven

i think it ultimately depends on if the dutch oven is ceramic or cast iron --- it seems that a cold oven is suggested for ceramic receptacles/baking stones etc so that they don't crack, but if yr using cast-iron or enamelled cast-iron, you wouldn't need to do that & it may change how the bread turns out?

it's been years since I made bread from scratch, so idk

It's enameled cast iron. It's rising very well in the oven, and I don't want to accidentally de-gas the dough with the impact of moving it around a couple of times, especially into a colder environment, so I'm going to try just turning the oven on. Thanks for that link!

It depends a lot on the dough - for most, you want a hot oven so the steam/gas in the dough can puff it up before the crust forms too much. A slower oven dries out the dough more during the rising/crust forming stages, again for most.

My last couple of bakes have been absolutely beautiful. Letting the preferment sit overnight was not working -- cutting back to four hours tops meant it was still very active and raring to go when I mixed the dough. Finally getting the hang of the Kitchenaid mixer. For this last batch, I had new silicone loaf pans. Got a huge oven bounce.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/aprilbread2.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/aprilbread1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/aprilbread3.jpg

Gorgeous!

Thanks! I'm learning that little things can mean so much -- barely warming the oiled bowl that the dough rises in, and making a slightly wetter dough. But not exhausting the preferment has been the most important lesson.