Baking Without an Oven #BreadWorld
Baking Without an Oven #BreadWorld
Baking without an oven is not only possible, it's really very simple to do once you know a few details about baking. Baking is a process to cook food usually done in an oven with dry heat. This method can easily be duplicated on a stove top with a little bit of ingenuity.
Tools
Well seasoned cast iron skillet, dutch oven or large pan with a tight fitting lid (a clear glass lid is preferable). Foil or jar lids to keep food off of the bottom of the pan while heating. Stove top, barbecue grill or Coleman type stove, and last but not least, a method to time cooking with.
Directions
While preparing recipe (below) place pan or dutch oven on heating element. Place jar lids or balled up foil in bottom of pan and place lid on pan. Turn heating element on to approximately medium and allow pan to heat up while you're preparing your recipe.
Recipes
All recipes can be easily adapted to this cooking method. It just takes a few minutes and the changes are very minor. Let's start with a cookie recipe. Prepare your cookie recipe in the same manner you would prepare it for regular oven baking. If it happens to be a little bit gooey you may wish to add another cup of flour in order to help prevent any sticking.
Corn bread and biscuit recipes also adapt well as long as they aren't a liquid batter. Simply add more flour until you have a more doughy consistency.
Baking
Once your recipe is prepared and your pan is heated through you are ready to bake your recipe. For cookies, biscuits or corn bread you'll be placing your dough onto well greased foil that is up on jar rings or balled up foil (you may wish to put cookies, biscuits or corn bread on foil before removing lid from pan and then place foil into pan with your recipe already on it to save heat). Make sure to shape your cookies, biscuits or corn bread in uniform sizes and smooth out the tops to keep cooking even.
Once you have your cookies, biscuits or corn bread in your pan place the lid back onto your pan. Now comes the fun part. Turn the heat down to a low to medium low temperature. Because you pre heated your pan the pan is already hot. Placing the lid on the pan allowed the heat to remain in the pan as well as on the lid. By quickly putting your recipe into the pan and replacing the lid you kept most of the heat in. Now you just need to maintain the heat.
If you're making a casserole simply place your recipe into a smaller casserole dish or cake pan that fits inside of your skilled. Replace lid, turn heat down to low to medium and proceed as below except you won't need to remove your casserole from the heat like you do the cookies. Just keep an eye on it and when it seems to be heated through you can remove it from the heat and allow it to sit a few minutes.
Tips
Cast iron holds heat very well so you shouldn't have to do too much to keep your heat going to bake your recipe. If you notice that nothing seems to be cooking you may simply need to turn up the heat for a few minutes until you can feel the heat on your pan again.
Once the bottoms of your cookies, biscuits or cornbread are browned remove the pan from heat (keeping the lid on the pan) and place on a burner that is not turned on. Allow your recipe to continue "baking" in the pan with lid on until desired doneness is achieved. This could be anywhere from ten minutes to around twenty minutes.
This process doesn't really take any longer than baking in a regular oven, you just need to keep a closer eye on your recipe as it bakes.
