Recently, we were out of bread at the cabin and didn't plan on going to town in the near future. In the winter, I bake bread with the help of my wood stove. On a warm summer day, I didn't want the extra heat. What to do? I looked at my cast iron dutch oven and thought it might do the trick.

I mixed up a batch of Sourdough Wheat Bread dough. When it was time to put it in a warm place to rise, I heated the dutch oven on top of the stove. Once the metal gave off a nice warm glow, I turned the burner off and put my covered bowl of dough inside on top of two hot pads. I gave the metal lid an extra shot of direct heat and placed it on top. Now I had a warm "oven" to get the yeast working.

I had to reheat the lid several times to keep the temperature warm enough inside. It did take a bit longer than usual to get the dough to double in size. When it was ready, I punched it down, kneaded it and placed it in a bread pan for a second rising. I reheated the dutch oven and lid before placing the pan inside, again protected by two hot pads on the bottom.

You may be wondering why I didn't just use my oven. Because it runs on propane, it gets very hot. Also, I have to lift out the bottom panel to relight the pilot every time I turn it on. And then there was the whole experimental process. I love finding new ways of doing things.

In the end I had to heat up the oven on to bake the bread. But in less than half an hour I had a nice loaf to tide us over until our next trip to town. Didn't it turn out nice?

Do you have any cooking experiments you'd like to share? I'd love to hear about them. -- Margy