This Easy-to-Use Bread Oven Made Me Ditch My Dutch Oven

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I've been baking bread for a long time, moving from my grandmother's no-recipe recipe to trying out recipes for lots of kinds of bread from different books. Throughout that journey there were a few equipment-specific revelations at which some new knowledge changed the way I baked like learning how the material of a baking vessel affects the final bread or acquiring a stand mixer to alleviate the need to hand-knead dough. One of the biggest inflection points though was learning to bake bread in a Dutch oven .

Once I started, I never turned back and 99% of my weekly loaves are baked this way to this day. My rustic boules are just as tasty as ones from my local bakery, and I saw no need to update my equipment — until I tried the Lodge Cast Iron Seasoned Bread Oven .

Why You Should Trust Me

I am a seasoned food editor who has been working in professional kitchens for almost 15 years. I've been baking bread for just as long — a lot of it in a Dutch oven. I know what good homemade bread looks, feels and tastes like and how differences in the shape, size, and material of your chosen baking vessel can affect a loaf.

What Is a Bread Oven?

A bread oven or "bread cloche" is a piece of bakeware specifically for bread that is designed to create an environment closer to a commercial oven. The shallow base and heavy lid create a strong seal that traps steam inside the cloche during the initial part of the bake, which helps with oven spring and forming a good crust. Once the lid is removed for the late stage of the bake, more of the loaf is exposed than would be in a high-sided Dutch oven, which is better for even baking and browning.

Lodge's Cast Iron Bread Oven Is the Secret to Bakery-Quality Loaves at Home

While you can bake very good bread in a Dutch oven (I've been doing it reliably for years), a bread oven is inverted, with a shallow-sided base at the bottom and a large lid on top. Lodge's ample base leaves plenty of room for more easy maneuvering of the bread in and out and less danger to your hands when scoring the loaf (which is typically done when the bread is already in the hot vessel). Further, once the domed lid is removed more of the surface of the bread is exposed to the heat of the oven, which means more even browning.

The bulk of the weight being in the lid also makes a better seal than a traditional Dutch oven, which is oriented the other way around (the pot itself is heavier than the lid). The integrity of the seal is very important, because the less steam is able to escape, the better the loaf. While some bread ovens might be slightly easier to haul in and out of the oven, Lodge's weighty cloche is made with thick cast iron that retains ample heat and seals extra tight.

This bread oven is circular, meaning you can only use it to bake round loaves. That's not a problem for me, as most of my loaves are round boules, but if you want the freedom of baking bread in different shapes, you might prefer a more roomy ovular or rectangular bread cloche .

My Honest Review of the Lodge Seasoned Cast Iron Bread Oven

I'll be honest. I was a bread oven skeptic before embarking on testing this oven out. A bread oven seemed like an unnecessary solution to a non-problem. If you own a Dutch oven, why would you buy a second, upside down one solely for the purpose of baking bread? You can just bake bread in the Dutch oven. And if you don't own a Dutch oven, why not buy the multi-use pot (which can be used for innumerable things in the kitchen) instead of the uni-tasking alternative that can only be used for bread baking?

The only advantage I saw to the bread oven vs. the Dutch oven was that the inverted set up means you don't risk burning your fingers on the tall walls of the pot while trying to lower dough in or scoop bread out of it. I didn't know what I didn't know.

In order to see for myself if the Lodge oven could out-bake my trusty Le Creuset Dutch oven, I mixed up a double batch of my weekly no-knead bread and baked two loaves back to back, one in my Dutch oven and one in the Lodge bread oven. The loaf baked in the bread oven came out darker and taller than the one baked in the traditional Dutch oven. While both breads were great, the one that came out of the Lodge bread oven had a springier texture and a crustier exterior.

The whole point of baking bread inside a closed vessel (whether that's a dedicated bread oven or a Dutch oven) in the first place is to trap steam. In the first stages of baking, steam improves the bread's crust and helps it to rise (aka "oven spring"), so you don't get a dense loaf. Lodge's bread oven is just better at this than my traditional Dutch oven. The reversed orientation and extra weight made a bigger difference than I was expecting. It made my already perfect-to-me bread even better. I've been baking in it for over a month now. Call me a convert.

It's weighty and tall.

This thing is pretty heavy. At almost 15 pounds, it's noticeably heftier than my roughly 11 pound Dutch oven. However, the weight is a feature, not a bug. The thick, cast iron walls retain heat very well, and the heavy lid forms a very tight seal with the base.

The bread oven is also quite tall. With its large, domed cloche-style lid it's almost 8-inches tall, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's enough that I had to remove the second grate in my oven to accommodate it without having to position the first grate in its lowest position. For reference, I usually bake bread with the Dutch oven placed in the bottom third of the oven, not all the way at the bottom.)

You can use the base as a skillet.

This is more of a bonus for me than a real draw, but if you don't own a small cast iron skillet already, it's like getting two pieces of cookware in one.

If you still can't bear the thought of a single-use kitchen item, Lodge also makes a "double Dutch" oven , which can be used as a pot (though the lid lacks a handle on top) or a bread oven.

It's easy to clean.

This bread oven is made of cast iron, and requires the same type of care as a cast iron skillet if you want to avoid rust. Unlike with cast iron skillets, though, this is only being used to bake bread, so there's no greasy layer to worry about cutting through, or stuck on food to deal with. I hand washed and dried it after every use, and will re-season it in the oven when necessary. Easy peasy.

Buy: Lodge Chef Collection Seasoned Cast Iron Bread Oven ,$99.90 at Amazon

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