Cold Start Sourdough Baking

As we've all been embarking on the sourdough bandwagon there are a few pesky things about baking a beautiful artisan round loaf that were bugging me. For starters, I totally didn’t like having to preheat the big Dutch oven, get it piping hot, try to not burn yourself as you lower your loaf into the pot, put the lid back on and then into the oven. And then sometimes you take the lid off half way through and lower the temp. Or another frustrating thing was that the bottom of the loaf was really rock hard and or burnt. It wasn’t until I was introduced to this method from Elaine Body (my all-time favorite sourdough teacher). It solved all my frustrations and problems.

Cold start baking is as simple as you can get. Put your round of unbaked bread into the cold cast iron pot, put the lid on and put into a cold oven. No preheating or dealing with a piping hot pan. 

When you put the covered pan of dough in the oven, turn on the oven it on and leave the lid on the entire time, no peaking! It’s worth it. 425 degrees for 55 min.

It turns out golden and beautiful everytime. I’ve never had an unbearably hard burnt bottom again. If you take off the lid after the total bake time and find it needs a little more browning, just keep the lid off and set the timer for 5 more minutes. This saves time and money. Let me know if you’ve tried this method before!

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