Golden-Crust Dutch Oven Bread You Can Make Today

I’ve been baking since the moment my mom allowed me near the stove, which in good old Soviet Russia, well, was really early. Baking is honestly one of the most therapeutic pastimes I think anyone can enjoy, so it’s no surprise I put on body rolls as fast as I swallowed bread rolls. But despite eating copious amounts of baked goods through the years, there’s something absolutely timeless and incredibly memorable about a simple, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, chewy fresh bread loaf.

Although I could start with some fancy-shmancy garlic and rosemary, or rum raisin and cinnamon bread, I didn’t want to muddle the tone of baking on this blog just yet. This recipe in itself is extremely simple, and I’m certain there’s tonnes of variations out there of the same thing, but after trying so many different kinds, I feel like this one takes the cake…er bread?

All you’ll really need is some patience, a dutch oven and a couple ingredients. No advanced cookware needed, no stone slabs, no lames, no fancy molasses, or experience baking for that matter.
This is as easy as it gets.

So lets begin!

You’ll want to start with letting your yeast bubble. For that combine the water (I like to use more warm vs. lukewarm) with the 1 1/2 tbsp of yeast, and just let that sit for 10 mins (or until the granules of yeast are bloated and bubbly on the top).

Next, you’ll want to grab a large bowl, and combine your coarse salt (can be sea salt, pink salt, kosher, etc), ground pepper and flour. Just keep in mind that kosher is less salty, so definitely increase the amount (I’d say double roughly).

Once your yeast is ready, combine together with half the flour mixture at first. Mix ’em together with a spatula or a spoon. You can also do this by hand, but that will get super messy, super quick!

The mixture should look soft and relatively well mixed. As long as you don’t have any flour pockets at the bottom of the bowl, you’re generally good to move onto the next step and add the remaining flour.

At this stage, I typically switch to using my hands and just keep folding the dough over itself. It should look rather shaggy, but mixed enough that there’s no flour or obvious wet spots.

Once that’s done, just plop that sucker over onto a flour dusted counter top (I find this is one of the more important steps), and rather than let it sit in a bowl, have the bowl cover it. This way the heat doesn’t escape as fast, and I somehow find the results work out better. Let rest 2-3 hours.

Once 2-3 hours have passed, and the dough has doubled in size (whichever comes first). You can start folding over the dough onto itself every 30 mins. I recommend doing this at least 5 times. In general, the longer you let this dough rise, the better the results. The holes that you typically see in the bread will have more time to develop this way, and the overall texture feels more uniform. So, if you lost track of time? Celebrate! Because this is a really forgiving dough.

Lastly, once your dough is looking plump and smoothed out, it’s time to shape it into some bread and bake this puppy! Just kidding, that’s morbid.

You can separate the dough into two smaller loaves (which is what I’m doing), or keep one large one. Shape can be round, or long, it won’t really make any difference for the cook. Place it on your floured counter again, (or if you aren’t using a dutch oven) place it on a floured baking sheet, but don’t bake yet! This is where the second-wind for patience comes in, and you should let that dough rest another hour before adding a serrated cut right before popping it in the oven.

So here’s my two ways of going about the baking:

Method 1: The Dutch Oven Method (Ideal)

It’s finally time to heat up your dutch oven on 500 degrees in the oven about 15-20 mins before you add the bread. Stick that lump of soon-to-be-deliciousness into the well floured dutch oven, add your cuts, and put the lid on, shove it in the actual oven and let bake for 15-20 mins. After that reduce the heat to 425 degrees and bake an additional 20-30 minutes (or until the crust on top is browned to your liking). The loaf should look deep brown as in the picture.

Method 2: The Baking Sheet

Now, not all of us are lucky enough to have stolen their mother’s dutch ovens in their youth (sorry mom!) so if you are a novice baker, or simply someone who doesn’t have the space for one of these puppies, worry not! You can still bake this bread on a baking sheet, however, there’s just a few extra steps to the process, and I can’t quite guarantee that the bake will be exactly as with Method 1.

So, rather than heating the oven to 500, heat it to 450 and all you’ll need to do is cut your bread, grab about a cup of ice and dump that into your oven, and shove the pan with the bread in. Now the ice imitates the dutch oven effect of steaming your bread, so that the crust forms, but not too quickly. Without an additional cover it can easily burn, so I recommend after about 25 mins turning the heat down to 400 and baking until the bread sounds hollow when tapped with a fork. This is usually about another 20-30 mins.

And voila! You are done! Your beautiful masterpiece that took a rather lengthy chunk of time, is now here!

Let the loaf cool, until it’s barely warm to the touch and enjoy!