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On 27 Feb 2005 10:39:56 -0800, wrote:

>
>janie wrote:
>> I make good bread (tastes good anyway) BUT! I never get that pretty
>Brown
>> outside skin that I always see in the store bought or bakery bread.
>I asked
>> the lady at the bakery (kroger) and she said that they always bake
>the
>> bread at 400°... and that steam also did the trick. Said that is I
>got a
>> spray bottle and sprayed the bread just before I put the bread in the
>oven I
>> would get the same effect.
>> It doesn' seem to work!
>> Anybody know a secret?
>> jni
>
> You don't want to spray the actual loaf of bread with the water.
>For best results the loaf itself should actually be dry before you put
>it in the oven. When you put the bread in the oven take a spray bottle
>and spray a generous amount of water in the interior of your oven to
>generate a lot of steam. Just make sure you don't spray the bread
>itself. Spray the wall of your oven. Close the oven door and keep it
>shut for about 30 seconds. After the 30 seconds are up open the oven
>door to release most of the steam and then close it again and let the
>bread finish baking.
>If you want to soften up the crust then let the bread cool and then
>place it inside a sealed plastic bag. Within hours the bread will
>soften up. If you want it to remain crusty then you should store it in
>loosely folded paper bag.

Howdy,

With respect, spraying the oven does little for the bread...

In fact, it probably makes things worse. You want the heat
of the oven to go into the bread, but with the method you
suggest, much of that heat is wasted changing the water to
steam. That cools the oven dramatically. (Most home ovens
are little more than sheet metal boxes filled with heated
air. There is so little hot mass that the temperature drops
significantly just by introducing the cool dough.)

A vastly better approach is to have a boiler on the range
top with a tube to convey steam into the oven itself. That
is actually very easy to do, and is inexpensive too.

But, the unfortunate reality is that any effort to create
steam inside the oven is likely to be counterproductive.

All the best,
--
Kenneth

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