Baking.....

[CptDondo]

What are your experiences with baking? I have a cheap Dometic propane 3 burner stove and oven, and the oven is awful. Every time I try to bake something I threaten to yank that thing out and toss it overboard.

I'm looking at a Force 10 3 burner stove, but before I make that jump I want to know if it's worth it.

[Sailmonkey]

We bake all manner of things in our force 10 that we would in a home oven. Sometimes without as much success, others better.

Adding a pizza stone to the flame deflector made a world of difference in the temperature stability of the oven

[psk125]

We bake lasagna and blueberry muffins in our Force 10’s oven. SailMonkey’s advice about a pizza stone makes some sense, though we haven’t had issues; our flame deflector is fairly hefty. Don’t know if newer ones are different. Ours is from 1981.

[JPA Cate]

CptDondo,

I have baked in all the ovens we've had on boats. On one, I bought a pottery floor tile (to use for a pizza stone), and it helped make the heat more even. I still had to turn cakes and bread midway in the baking process, as the outboard side where the burner was located was always just that bit hotter.

Now, I have a 3 burner Force 10. It, too, requires the cakes be turned about 2/3 of the way into the baking process, so it is not a total cure all.

The one I liked best was an old French Eno, with a round burner in the bottom. It had low, med, and high, heats, and baked flawlessly. I always suspected it had been sourced from an RV place, because, although gimbaled, it had feet with rubber tips.

If you've tried a proper pizza stone, and still are unhappy. If you've made a real effort to pre-heat the oven long enough (my F10 takes about 20 minutes, and all that propane is just used for no gain except for the pre-heat), and still are not having normal results, it might be worth while to change.

In the Bestevaer49 thread, Seaworthy Lass wrote about her stove, and it is interesting to follow her link, they looked really good to us, but were a little on the expensive side.

One thing I really don't like about the F10 is that it has dirt trapping features, tight places it's hard to get into to clean. However, that may be true for all ovens. If the metal is stamped tight, it can be a problem area. It is easy to keep relatively clean, but spotless is harder to come by.

We've only had this one about a year and a half, and it IS a big improvement on it's predecessor, certainly. It IS "good enough" for me.

Ann

[CptDondo]

Any recommendations for a pizza stone? We tried a cheap one and it exploded.

[S/V Adeline]

Originally Posted by CptDondo

Any recommendations for a pizza stone? We tried a cheap one and it exploded.

We have been using RADA Cutlery Stoneware (USA) for over 8 years with no complaints. They hold and spread heat very well.

[Sparx]

Another good practice is to bake inside a cast iron pan with lid. Preheat the cast iron in the oven. Place your shaped and risen dough in the hot cast iron pan, and cover with the lid. The heavy cast iron moderates temperature swings. The lid holds the steam in for a good rise of the dough. Remove the lid for the last half of the bake to allow for browning of the crust.

[JPA Cate]

Brent, could you please explain HOW you move the risen dough to the pre-heated cast iron "Dutch oven"? I would have thought the carbon dioxide would all go out when you lifted it? I can certainly see the cast iron helping mitigate swings in oven temperature.

It sounds a neat trick.

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@ Dondo: My floor tile did crack into 4 pieces (too much moisture in it, and i may have heated it too fast). However, it still added thermal mass, and I left it sitting there, cracked as it was. It did no harm.

Ann

[Sparx]

Ann, here are techniques I use.

Make the final rise in a banneton basket where the bottom of the loaf is facing up in the basket. Invert the banneton over the hot pan letting the risen dough drop as gently as possible top side up into the hot pan. You get one crack at this; there is no repositioning an off center drop. You bake what you drop. But the bread tastes good even if occasionally not shaped exactly as intended. Quickly score the top of the loaf, apply egg wash and seeds, then put the lid on and return the pan to the oven.


Make the final rise with the dough on a piece of parchment. Gently transfer the risen dough by lifting the edges of parchment, but support the loaf from underneath with a hand when possible.

Make the final rise in a small oven proof bowl that can be easily transferred into the pan. We use small pie pans for this.

[JPA Cate]

Hey, thanks for that, it is really inventive.

I do make bread in the pressure cooker (without the gasket, of course) sometimes, and found I had to/wanted to turn it and brown the top after it was cooked.

One of my favorite breads is a no-knead fruit and nut loaf, a slow riser, so it can go overnight and be baked in the morning....A lovely morning smell.

Thanks for the information.

Ann

[S/V Adeline]

Other than being gimballed, is there a significant difference between vessel stoves and RV stoves? Admittedly we (as in the Admiral, not me) use a bread machine slightly more often in the RV, but when she is in that mood we have two stoneware bread pans that can't be matched IMHO.
It's a 50mi round trip to refill gas so electric gets the nod onshore.
Anyone with experience using stoneware bread pans in a marine stove?

[Sparx]

That cast iron pan with a lid will also do a nice bake on the stove top. A favorite using this method is bannock, which is a something like a fat pita bread. The dough is rolled into a rough circle maybe 1 cm thick and allowed to rise. Coat with melted butter and cook in that cast iron with a lid on the stove top. Flip twice during the bake for big bubbles with nice carmelized crust.

These are easy to make in quantities just right for the meal, so they are always hot and fresh.