morgaina | Bread baking at Moot

One of the (many) things that made me very happy this weekend was finally getting some control of bread baking over coals. I baked both Friday and Saturday. Friday's loaf worked and was tasty... if ugly, I considered it good results in general. However, the bread on Saturday was "County Fair beautiful" as well as tasty. I didn't photograph it, I was so excited by it that I practically ran to serve it hot to everyone who wanted some, with

viking_food_guy's Irish butter.

The pipkin on the left is scalding milk for the bread; fat is being rendered into lard by

viking_food_guy in the metal hanging cauldron in the center; and the dome of the cloche is being heated in anticipation of plopping bread in it. These pictures don't look it, but the fire was hot!

a_pink_monkey is making fresh cheese in her pipkin. The pipkin in the left corner is stewing

freewaydiva's fresh apples with bourbon.

The cloche on the brazier now has bread baking within. A few pieces of coal on top are helping the interior heat up.

Oops, the base of the cloche split with a ping heard round the camp. We kept baking with it, but the crack let in cool air so it took 2 hours to bake.

Not the prettiest loaf, but it tasted good, wasn't burnt and wasn't raw! Big improvements in the looks of Saturdays's loaf were to come.

Saturday's loaf was better, because the dough itself was better, the crack in the cloche base was situated so it didn't let cool air in, and Alan's suggestion of using bark coals rather than wood coals seemed to help considerably. I made a point to avoid allowing flame to touch the cloche at all which, I believe, is also important for all clay cookery.