Broiled, Not Baked – When the Oven Thermostat Doesn’t Work

If you know anything about the Canfield family, you know we love to make our own bread, daily if at all possible, and eat it warm fresh out of the oven. The home we’re staying in right now doesn’t have a working oven. The broiler works but  not the thermostat. We’re all waiting on more income so we can afford to replace the thermostat. So we can’t bake bread the way we are usually do. Today we decided we had to have some home made, fresh-from-the-oven bread.

I did a Google search and read up on what some others have done when their oven didn’t work and they just had a broiler. Joel and I then experimented to see what we could do.

Here’s the result!

broiled bread
Top and bottom of broiled bread

Does it taste as good as it looks? You bet! The top got a bit crustier than we like and the inside was a bit softer. Fiona came back for more and said, “you make good bread!” Half the loaf was gone in less than 30 minutes. We’re trying to save the rest for tomorrow’s lunch. We’ll have to go out tomorrow and buy some flour and yeast so we can make more now.

So how did we do it?

We turned the broiler on and let the oven heat up. We put the dough on our baking stone and placed the stone on the lowest rack, moved to the lowest position. After 6 minutes, we turned the broiler off and let the bread sit in the oven 12 minutes or so. Then another 12 minutes. Turn the broiler back on for a few minutes; turn the bread over. Turn off the oven and let it all sit some more.

Next time we’re going to try it a bit different. We’ll put the bread in with the broiler on for 6 minutes, then turn it off and let it all sit another 15-20 minutes without opening the door. A delicate balance between getting the bread baked and not letting it burn. We’ll let you know how it turns out.

If you have a working oven, try our bread recipe below and let us know how it goes. If you try broiling your bread, we’d love to hear about that as well!

Homemade Baked Bread Recipe

3/4 cup hot water
3/4 cup cool water
Combine

Add 1 tbsp. sugar and 1-1/8 tsp salt. Dissolve and mix thoroughly. Add 1-1/2 tspn. yeast and let set for 5-10 minutes.

Add 2 cups bread flour and 1-1/2 cups wheat flour. Add any spices or herbs you may want. Combine thoroughly.

Let rise for 1 hour. Punch down. Shape. Let rise another hour.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

 

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