Just Baking

I’ve been away a while, and not baking for that time.  I’m here to report on why I haven’t been baking…

I’d read all the books about how to bake artisan breads in a home oven.  I have 2 stones, one for the dough, one above to even out the temps.  I use a shallow pan to create steam by pouring boiling water into it when the dough it put in the oven.  And I have a pretty good-but-cheap spray bottle to spray the oven when I put bread in it.

There’s the culprit - The Spray Bottle!  Ok, I’m the culprit, but the spray bottle was my tool of ineptitude.  Here’s the basic scenario:

• Dough is in it’s final fermentation
• Oven goes on at 550 degrees F
• Dough is read
• Oven is opened
• Dough is put on the stone via peel
• Boiling water is added to the shallow pan on the top shelf
• Oven is sprayed with spray bottle containing distilled water
• Oven is closed
• Temp is lowered to 475
• Crack appears in glass during the baking of the bread

What did I forget?  If you guessed that I forgot to cover the glass in the oven window before spraying, you win the prize!!!

Yes, I forgot to cover the glass, and I must have dribbled a drip of water on it, causing the glass to crack due to it being heated to well over 500 degrees.  $150 for the glass + $75 for the repairman = $225 mistake made using a $1 spray bottle.

In the future, I’ll be using an oven door sized piece of cardboard to ensure no water is dribbled anywhere near the glass!  The heat in the oven will keep enough to do what I need it to do, which is actually the main reason, I think, for having it up so high to start.  You don’t lose all the heat when you open the door to do what you need to do to get the dough going.