I decided to change things up a bit this week and make a different kind of bread. My mom gave us a clay pot cooker for our wedding but we had never gotten around to using it. I heard that clay pots can be a great tool for baking crusty, chewy, dense bread, and I had a recipe from King Arthur Flour so I figured, why not give it a try?
This is actually the third loaf I’ve made in the clay pot. It took a bit of trial and error but the results were delicious and worth it. I found a few good hints here, and I learned a few things myself.
I’d say the biggest lesson for me was to generously oil the inside of the pot and then generously coat it with cornmeal. If you don’t do this the bread will stick in the pot. I eventually learned I had to do this even on the inside of the lid since the pot was a bit small for the size loaf I was making. The recipe makes a BIG loaf (it uses 5.5 cups of flour).
Here’s a pic of the loaf still in the clay pot, next to it’s lid.
Have you ever made bread in a clay pot?
See Also:
Our Daily Bread: April 26, 2009
Our Daily Bread: April 18, 2009
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