Baking bread in a woodburner (Jotul 600)!

 After a nudge from Leo I finally got round to baking bread in the woodburner. I hadn't done it before because I thought it would be a disaster, the stove is only little! Luckily for us, kind friends of ours (Trisha and Chris) gave us a gift of some lovely Shipton Mill spelt flour and I had some out of date Doves Farm yeast lying around from ages ago. So there really was no excuse!

Recipe

I used a basic recipe for a spelt loaf from the Doves Farm website as that's the first one I came across online. Here it is:

500 g	White Spelt Flour or Wholegrain Spelt Flour
½ tsp	Salt
1 tsp	Quick Yeast
1 tsp	Sugar
300 ml	Warm Water
1 tbsp	Vegetable Oil

Make sure everything (bowl, flour, you) isn't cold. We mostly have the woodburner going all day during the winter so the yurt is comfortably warm, which helped!

Chuck the flour, salt, yeast & sugar in the bowl and give it all a good mix. Add the water and mix until you feel like it's coming together but still looks rough. Then add the oil and start to knead. I kneaded mine for about 5 mins.


Prove it!

I then put it in an oiled heavy stonewear casserole dish and put the lid on, so it could prove in a protected environment (we're constantly in and out the yurt & I was paranoid the cold air was going to get it!). 

I then went out to get the rams in, checked them over and did their feet for a couple of hours and came back to this wonder of wonders! The yeast was alive, it rose!

I gave the dough another beating for 5 mins and then put it on oiled greaseproof paper in the enameled metal baking dish I was going to be cooking it in. I covered it with another bit of oiled greaseproof paper to stop it drying out and protect it from draughts and left it for another hour or so (I didn't have to leave it that long. It was risen enough after 30 minutes).

Prepare the fire! 

The burner was down to light embers and so I kicked off some big old logs. When they were roaring I shut the stove right down for about 20mins (don't open the door to check!). That turned the logs into a sort of charcoal perfect for baking on.

Leo bent an old oven shelf to fit inside the burner. I took off the greaseproof paper covering the dough (but didn't remove the greaseproof paper that the dough was sitting on!) and very gently popped it in the burner. You can see in the picture that I've put some crinkled up recycled tin foil over the embers.

 

To cook the bread close the door gently and shut the burner right down (just like you did when you were charcoaling the logs) and cook for 35 minutes or so. I checked mine after 15 mins and that's when I realised I should have put in the crinkled up tin foil from the beginning!

Slightly blackened bum!

I couldn't wait for it to cool before I scoffed some! The bread is absolutely delicious and had a slightly smoky taste to it! To minimise that make sure you keep the stove shut right down all the way through cooking.

If you give it a go in your woodburner I'd love to hear how you got on and hear some of your hints n tips!

HooraH!

hen xx