We love baking bread in a Dutch oven. Because it’s made of cast iron, a Dutch oven retains and radiates heat very well, and its tight-fitting lid helps keep in steam so that the bread rises properly and develops a perfect, crackly crust. Better still, it’s a piece of cookware that many home cooks already own, so there’s no need to shell out extra cash for one or for other specialized tools such as baking stones or lava rocks.
That said, we do have a few minor quibbles when it comes to using our favorite Dutch ovens for baking bread. First, while spacious, they’re round, so it’s not possible to bake full-size oval-shaped loaves in them. Second, the Dutch ovens’ tall sides can make it tricky to lower the dough into them or lift the finished loaf out, especially when the pot is already hot; more than a few of us have burned our knuckles or forearms in the process. And finally, any traces of oil or fat leftover from cooking can polymerize and form sticky patches when exposed to high heat. While these sticky patches don’t affect a Dutch oven’s performance, they are unappealing to look at and difficult to get rid of.
So we were intrigued when we saw that prominent bakers were raving about the Challenger Bread Pan online. Essentially an oblong cast-iron cloche, a stoneware vessel with a shallow base and domed lid that is used for baking bread, this pan promises to produce crusty breads of different shapes and sizes—and to make the entire bread-baking process easier from start to finish. Curious to see if it lived up to the hype, we bought one and used it to make about 20 loaves of bread, including several loaves of Almost No-Knead Bread and Pain au Levain, over the course of a few months.
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