Thursday, March 10, 2011

New Gadget: French Bread/Baguette Pan

Because of gracious readers who clicked from this blog to Amazon before making their purchases, I received my first gift card from Amazon with my portion of those sales.  I decided it was only right to use that money toward a kitchen tool that I could try out and share here...Putting my income 'back into the business,' so to speak.                                                                                                                                  
In A Day for Baking: Part Heart, Part Science I showed my towel trick for trying to keep the somewhat wet artisan bread dough in loaf shape, since it wants to spread flat.  This worked during the rise time, but left the whole situation at risk when I had to move the dough from the support of the towels to the baking 
Chicago Metallic Commercial II Non-Stick Perforated French Bread Panstone in the oven.  For years, I'd thought about buying a French bread pan, but never let go of the $20 to do so.  This was my opportunity!  It arrived a few days ago.                                                                     



I was pretty confident that, like the towels, it would do a fine job supporting the dough 
during its rise time.  It didn't disappoint there.                                                                                       
What I wasn't sure about was whether it was a good idea to have a pan between the dough and the baking stone...If it would bake as well without sitting directly 
on the preheated, very hot stone.  Not only would the cold metal be in between, but do to the shape, much of the pan would be curved up away from the stone, rather than making contact.  It didn't prove to be a problem at all.                                                                                  
The bread baked beautifully, and with the interesting little pattern on the bottom that added to the crispness of the loaf.                                                                                                                                                              
I'm quite happy to have this new tool.  It made baking artisan loaves for our family much easier with more assured handling and consistent sizing...And it's great to be able to bake 2 at a time.


Previous post that may interest you:
Oven Temperature Probe:
Not just for meats any more

3 comments:

  1. What a great tool. The bread looks wonderful and it seems to be a much easier method. Thanks for sharing and for recommending this handy tool. Yum!
    ~Lynn
    www.cottageandcreek.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have been thinking about getting another pan to speed up the baking time. I've also had a curiosity about using a canvas to proof french bread, thinking it may be better than my double baguette pan that works well. It is solid black aluminum. Thanks for the great review. The bread looks fantastic. Bet it didn't get cold before the first bites were had.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That looks so good! I've been toying with the idea of getting one, too, since I do all our breadbaking, and shaping with aluminum foil logs is a PITA. Thanks for the great review!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...