Fresh Baked Hearth Bread
I used the recipe on the back of the bread flour bag left over from the pizza party. I tripled the recipe because I figure if you’re going to light up the oven, you might as well use it to it’s full capacity. Thanks to this lady on You Tube, I took my turn at kneading out the dough (she made it look a lot easier than it was). Several sloppy attempts later, I placed the 3 balls of dough in my bowls to rise, and about an hour later I ‘knocked them back‘ and let them rise again.
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| dough after kneading |
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| letting dough rise |
At this point I went ahead and lit the fire since I knew I’d need to let it burn for 1-2 hours before having enough retained heat to bake for a while. You’re going to want to get your fire burning really HOT, to where the flames are actually shooting out of the door! Keep stoking this fire. I kept mine going until my dough was just about ready to go in, which ended up being about 1hr. 45 min. and it seemed to do the trick.
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| dough ready to go into oven |
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| heating up oven |
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| hot coals spread across hearth floor |
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| first peek at the bread! |
While the oven was heating up, I ‘shaped‘ the dough into round balls and cut an ‘X’ into the tops. At this point the fire was SUPER hot and I was running out of wood anyways. I tried to hold my arm in the oven for an ‘8 Mississippi count’, but I think I got to about 2 or 3 (arm hairs are still in tact). At this point, I let the fire burn down to coals, and then I spread the coals out evenly over the hearth and let it sit for about 10 min. I then used a hoe to scrape the coals out into a wheelbarrow…be careful of hot coals if you have bare feet! Once the coals were out, I wet a cotton rag and wiped the hearth down to clean the surface. I then put the oven door on to ‘wash’ the oven. This period of time helps the hearth floor become an even temperature all over and helps regulate the temperatures inside of the oven as a whole. I decided to test the temperature to see if it was ready for breads and I threw in a handful of wheat flour. I had read that if it browns in 10-20sec. then it’s good for bread, and if it burns up fast, the oven is too hot and you should let it sit. My flour looked good so I gave it a go! After flouring the bakers peel and putting the first loaf on, I sprayed the top of the bread with water to add steam in the oven. (this might be unnecessary). I popped the first loaf in, closed the door tight, and sat back and crossed my fingers. About 20 min. later I could smell it cooking from indoors and I just couldn’t take the suspense any longer. Much to my surprise, this golden brown, beautiful round loaf was staring me in the face! I quickly got it out, as it maybe looked a little too brown, and put it on racks to cool. I prepped the other 2 loaves and threw those in at the same time for the second round of bread baking. I decided on this batch to turn them 180 degrees after 10 min. It seemed that the oven was not quite as hot on this go ’round, so I rotated them and decided to leave these for another 20 min. After a total cook time of 30 min. I pulled out two lightly golden brown perfect loaves! I waited 45 min. or so before cutting into the first loaf…crispy crunchy outside, warm soft inside. Delish!
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| letting bread cool |
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| hot damn those are some golden buns! |
I’ll go ahead and share my bread recipe with you and then tell you how I decided to use the remaining heat in the oven. Check out my next post…..
Hearth Bread Recipe
3 1/3 cups bread flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 1/3 cups water
1 teaspoon honey
Mix flours, salt, and yeast in large bowl.
Stir in water and honey.
Knead dough for 8-10 min.
Place dough in oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit in warm place until dough doubles in size. Place dough on floured surface and gently flatten dough. Shape into round ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size. Place dough on baker’s peel (floured) and slice ‘X’ into top of loaf. Once oven is ready, transfer dough into oven, close door, and wait 20-30 min, or until golden brown. Rotate 180 once half way through cooking. Spraying dough with water prior to inserting in oven may increase steam production.