Cooking

Let it cool, still warm. Ceramic on the left, cast iron on the right:

Cast iron baked up sightly darker and tasted overcooked. Same oven, same temp, same time, rotated 1/2 way through, left to right front to back.

So, going forward, all ceramic all the time, or, if in cast iron, maybe reduce the time from 60 minutes to 50 or 55 minutes.

Cast iron has a really large thermal capacity (I use it for searing, as an example, because once you get it hot it'll sear food without noticeably cooling down).

This is generally a bad property for baking since you would, ideally, like to submerge most baked goods in uniform temperatures to produce consistent heating. This is why baking moulds are made of very thin metal. To work around it with a cast iron pan you'd want to partially preheat the pan so that the heat conductivity of the cast iron is as close to air as possible - that'd be extremely hard to do precisely.

It's a neat experiment though so thank you for sharing it. We do use our cast iron for cooking some breads but they're quite distinct. We use it for Farinata, Pupusas, and corn tortilla - and it works for these breads because they're unleavened and using high thermal capacity cookware slightly simplifies the cooking process by making the heat transference more consistent.

Astounding; it looks like they both came out exactly the same. This challenges my beliefs about cast iron and that makes me uncomfortable.

Don't like ceramic. Easier to get soggy bottoms and they can break. Just get used to using one or the other. I'm all metal with my baking and everything comes up great. Also I do not like silpat mats. Parchment all the way especially with cookies. I'll use the silpat for rolling the cinnamon roll dough and that's it.

I see a lot of recipes that have different temperatures if the pan is black or nonstick. It makes sense that you'd need to reduce the temp for the cast iron.

Somewhat expected results. Hope you enjoy your bread! "blonde interior" 😄

Well?

I had some Aluminum (Nordic Ware) loaf and mini-loaf pans that were useless at browning, zero browning no matter what I did, even if you overcooked the top, the sides and bottom wouldn't brown.

Recently switched over to Steel loaf and mini-loaf pans after reading some reviews (Chicago Metallic) and they've been great.

Made of aluminized steel, this pan features a reinforced rim and folded corners that help to prevent the warping that may happen with lighter pans. "Chicago Metallic's uncoated loaf pans are workhorses for us," says Clémence Gossett, owner of The Gourmandise cooking school in Santa Monica, California. "The narrow base allows for more vertical expansion, allowing for a taller loaf. I prefer metal to ceramic for a more golden, even crust on our yeasted and quick breads."

Nordic Ware makes a Carbon Steel loaf pan, so I might try that next and see how it compares "Nordic Ware Treat Carbon Steel Loaf Pan" though I'll probably mess up the non-stick coating since I like using my pan grippers instead of oven mitts.

I can't find any others that make an uncoated carbon steel loaf pan like these (not a pullman style dedicated to bread)