My first real bread!

Bought a cast iron Dutch Oven last weekend. Though it came factory seasoned, it's spent the last week on my woodstove as I'd periodically apply more peanut oil to season it more thoroughly.

Found this recipe/video, which while they made it in a Dutch Oven in a regular oven, I figured I'd try on my woodstove:


The recipe written down:

3 Cups flour
1/4 tsp Yeast
1-1/4 tsp Salt

Mix the dries together.

Mix in 1-1/4 cup water.

Let sit 12 hours.

Bake 30 minutes covered, 15 minutes uncovered.

My dough came out OK. Seemed a bit on the dry side; still had some flour that didn't get wetted. I may have been off on my guesstimate of 1/4 tsp yeast, too. But since I haven't used yeast at least since 8th grade Home Ec (and probably not even then)...figured it wasn't too bad for a first try :)

Got up at 7am and loaded the stove smaller "cook wood" I knew would get it hot, fast. Tended to my yogurt, did other morning stuff, and by 8:30 the dough had been rising for 12 hours and the Dutch Oven was hot:



First 30 minutes is lid on, the bread needs the steam from itself. Then 15 minutes cover-less:



The bottom burned, but the rest came out really good. One of the folks on Facebook said it was missing a glass of milk and some honey...gonna have to try that next time because that would've gone so well with the fresh bread for breakfast!



I think next time I'll take it off the woodstove at the 30 minute mark and leave to bake in the Dutch Oven on a pad. Or if I can find a trivet (wonder how long it would take Pam to notice one missing from her kitchen decorations...), once the Dutch Oven is hot, right before I throw in the dough put the trivet under it on the woodstove.

I'm figuring it used 60 cents of flour (3 cups of King Arthur bread flour @ $3.79/5#, about 4 cups to the pound), and maybe 5 cents of yeast and flour.