First try at bread on the egg

Kenny 13

Since even before I got my BGE, I've been interested in exploring its' full capabilities. Lately I've been reading a lot about baking on the egg, whether it's bread, pizza, or even desserts, and I've been trying to learn some of that. I'm completely new to the baking thing and thanks to some suggestions from forum members here I found a few places online to learn a little.

Saturday I baked my first loaf of bread in the oven, and it was as basic a recipe as you can find with the only ingredients being flour, yeast, salt, & water. Yesterday I planned on cooking a few burgers for dinner, so I thought it would be great to serve them on some home baked bread cooked in the egg. Used another basic recipe from the same site with a few more ingredients, and basically just expanded on that first basic recipe. Came out pretty good for a first try at baking on the egg. Got a few pics here.

Here's the dough, set for rising.



After the rise (90 minutes), quite a difference in size.



Since I wanted to put burgers on the bread, I decided to go with a loaf pan to get some control over the shape. Here it is shaped and scored, ready for baking after another hour rising.



Finished baking on the egg.







I'm enjoying learning a little about baking bread, and getting to taste the results. For those who haven't tried it, other than like my only experience with bread machines, it's really not difficult at all and the results, even with basic breads like the ones I've tried are better than what you buy at the store.

I'll have more up later with the burgers, served on slices of this bread toasted up on the grill.

BENTE

wow that looks like a great loaf!!

FlaPoolman

Nice looking bread, a lot better that my first couple of attempts.

Kenny 13

Thanks guys! I did have a little problem with it. This was my first cook on the egg where I had to be perfectly dialed in to a temperature, so it took me quite some time to get there. I needed to bake at 350° and it took me about an hour to get dialed in. I was using a pizza stone at the bottom of the AR to keep direct heat off the bottom of the pan, which sat on top of the rig.

Once I was holding 350° for about 20 minutes, I put the bread in. The temperature drop from opening the egg quickly only went down toe 320°, but never returned all the way to 350°. Got back to 340° after 15 minutes, and only maxed out at about 345° during the cook. The result was that the crust wasn't quite as dark as it was supposed to be (saw pics of what it should have looked like) and it had to cook nearly 10 minutes longer than it should have, but I left things alone as I didn't want to be chasing temps during the cook.

All in all, I was happy with my results though. I called my daughter to come over and taste some, and she thought it was better than the one I cooked in the oven on Saturday. We all agreed on that point.

Grilling Away in ?

I would be happy with that as my first try at making bread. Looks delicious.

Primeggister1

Nice! Post the recipe, would love to try it.

FrankC

That looks great Kenny! I've been experimenting for the first time with focaccia for the past two weeks. The family likes it, but like you, I'm not getting the color that I'd like.

fc

NotabuttDave

Not bad Kenny. I too have been trying my hand at baking in my large. I bought mine in December.

One thing I noticed:

I will light my egg while the dough is rising for the second time. If it takes me an hour to stabilize the temp. I will loose heat as you did. I think it is because I have burnt up too much char coal during the process. Try loading up the egg with more charcoal the next time you bake. Also, you need to "jiggle" your coal.


Try pretzels, they are awesome on the Egg.

Kenny 13

NotabuttDave wrote:

Not bad Kenny. I too have been trying my hand at baking in my large. I bought mine in December.

One thing I noticed:

I will light my egg while the dough is rising for the second time. If it takes me an hour to stabilize the temp. I will loose heat as you did. I think it is because I have burnt up too much char coal during the process. Try loading up the egg with more charcoal the next time you bake. Also, you need to "jiggle" your coal.


Try pretzels, they are awesome on the Egg.

I don't really think it's from using up too much charcoal. After I baked the bread, I raised the temp in the egg and cooked burgers, and now after everything has cooled down the charcoal is still up to the bottom of the fire ring.

Kenny 13

Primeggister1 wrote:

Nice! Post the recipe, would love to try it.

I got the recipe from the lessons on www.thefreshloaf.com Click on "Lessons" on the menu bar towards the upper right of the screen, and this recipe is from lesson #2.