LoafNest World’s Easiest Artisan Bread Kit. Cast Iron Dutch Oven [Blue Gradient] and Non-Stick Perforated Silicone Liner

10 reviews for LoafNest World’s Easiest Artisan Bread Kit. Cast Iron Dutch Oven [Blue Gradient] and Non-Stick Perforated Silicone Liner

1. 

   Millie – 20 September 2024

   Ergonomically designed for its weight
   I’ve been baking bread for twenty eight years and wanted something different to the regular bread tin. This Dutch oven is fantastic for making artisan bread with a consistent texture throughout the loaf with no chance of burning the crust. I agree it’s a bit pricey, but it will last for as many years as I decide to keep baking. Arrived well packaged with a user manual and recipe inside. If you’re new to making bread, then I suggest making a regular dough, letting it rise twice for an hour each time (kneading in between rises) rather than waiting for it to raise 12 – 18 hours, as this would certainly have made me regret buying it and would have returned it if I weren’t able to use it immediately. Photos of the first loaf with this casserole! This is my go to bread recipe with butter and Guinness as the water substitute. The handle positions are a clever design as the casserole weighs 5kg and they allow for easier handling as it retains more heat than standard bake ware. In all, very happy with purchase.

2. 

   Patrick – 20 September 2024

   Delicious, reliable, easy bread
   In one sense, nothing about the LoafNest is revolutionary: no knead bread is a well- established technique, as is using a dutch oven particularly for high hydration doughs, as is the use of silicone liners to avoid sticking.
   The reason why the LoafNest has revolutionised my bread making is how it brings these established elements together to enable me to bake a loaf completely consistently, easily, with no mess. The cast iron dutch oven is exactly the right shape for a loaf with 500g flour, and the silicone liner fits exactly the whole lower half of the dutch oven and the loaf.
   I am not a baker but have probably baked some 200 loaves over the years. Low hydration doughs (60% water) were easy to shape, but lacked texture and flavour. High hydration doughs (80% water) gave me the texture and flavour I wanted but I struggled to work the dough (very messy) and then to shape the loaf (it spread out too flat). No knead recipes solve the messiness of working with high hydration doughs, and dutch ovens solve the problem of shaping the loaf (as well as crust and texture). But even my no knead doughs stuck to a dutch oven, and using parchment paper takes me a while. The LoafNest solves all that. Could I learn to work high hydration dough and shape it accurately by hand? Sure I could. But I don’t want to because I eat bread every day and I don’t want to spend that much time trying to perfect each loaf.
   With the LoafNest I only wash up one bowl and one fork – that’s it; the silicone liner just needs a rinse after use. I don’t actually touch the dough at all. There is no mess. Of the loaves I have done they have been completely reliable, all have been delicious and they look incredible.
   The only thing you do have to consider is that you need to leave the dough to ferment for 18 hours. So, 3pm for a 9am bake the next morning. This does need planning. If you think you won’t be able to plan out like that then the LoafNest probably isn’t for you, but then again probably long fermentation loaves are not for you. If you love and want to learn the artistry of working high hydration dough with your hands then, again, the LoafNest is not for you because you don’t touch the dough. If you want easy, reliable, tasty home-made bread then I’d strongly recommend this.

3. 

   Alan D. – 20 September 2024

   Very high quality, easy to use and clean.
   Using the silicon liner works well – very fast clean up. Oven is high quality, very attractive and is good size for medium size loaf. First bake went very well and bread cooked evenly in our Aga.
   Liner was missing from original delivery. The vendor responded with a replacement quickly and the company was efficient and pleasant to deal with.
   Only reason this review is not 5 stars is the high price. I’d get a second one, but the price point is a problem.
   ( It would also be helpful if the description gave the volume in ltrs. The measurements are given, but the shape of the oven makes it a lttle difficult to calculate the volume.)

4. 

   Mr & Mrs M. – 20 September 2024

   Homemade bread made easy
   I’ve been using my Loafnest for a year and a half, and it really does make it easy to get an artisanal loaf at home. I find shaping loaves very challenging which was one of the reasons I bought this. I had some initial problems getting a consistent loaf with a good texture (they were too dense and moist), and contacted the Loafnest team for help. Following their suggestions I was able to get the results I was looking for. I do three stretch-and-folds at the beginning of the process, and also add bread improver (available here on Amazon). After the stretch-and-folds (which are very easy) I leave the dough to rise overnight and bake the loaf in the morning. The loaves are still a bit on the dense side and we use an electric slicer to cut thin slices for sandwiches and toast. But it is delicious, flavourful bread that hardly takes any time or effort at all to make. It is a bit pricey but if you don’t already have a dutch oven and only want to make bread, it definitely does the trick.

5. 

   Sarah Charles – 20 September 2024

   Awesome
   This is a perfect investment if you want to make your own bread , it’s certainly robust and unique in the way to make and create a beautiful loaf of bread, the only downfall is the basic recipe, it’s a bit bitty to start off with but adding different ingredients to it , will make it a perfect loaf of bread, simple and easy to use and yeah expensive it might be, it is worth its weight in gold . The recipes can be found in a PDF file if you look on line , you do not need to follow the one on the box , I just looked for Loafnest recipes online and it came up with that version .
   Only thing lacking in that basic recipe is oil , even the traditional bread making consisted of a form of oil , the best one I used was vegetable oil only 20 grams and extra 20 grams of water to make it more moister and yes it did work.

6. 

   JusCuz – 20 September 2024

   As a novice bread maker I decided to invest in this bread container to obtain the shape of the loaf that I was looking for – sooooo glad I did!! It’s fantastic and all the bread that I’ve made with it has turned out perfect! I like the fact the handles are off center because it’s much easier to lift the top from the bottom if the pan is scalding hot. Love, love, love it!! Worth every penny to invest!

7. 

   Marconelli – 20 September 2024

   We’ve tried so many different methods of baking artisan bread loaves I can hardly count them: round ceramic cloches, long narrow ones, Dutch ovens, steam injection, …. you name it. Most of the time, we followed the now very popular no-knead approach championed by Mark Bittman and Jim Lahey. But we still hadn’t found a simple reliable method for producing great loaf we were looking for, with crispy crust and fluffy, open-holed crumb.
   Then along came LoafNest, and our long search came to an end. An added bonus is that we no longer even need to use our KitchenAid stand mixer to combine the ingredients. The LoafNest method requires nothing more than hand mixing. It takes longer to get the rise you need — about 12 hours — but the added time is a small price to pay for all the work you save. And the results are spectacular.
   Now this is an expensive product, so you really have to be serious about your bread to want to invest in one. There are other cloches out there — some imported from France — that cost considerably less. But they are typically ceramic, and hence more fragile than this enameled cast-iron product. This will surely last a lifetime, like my 60 year old LeCreuset skillet.
   The LoafNest kit includes more than just the 2-piece cast-iron casserole. There is also a custom silicone liner that the dough is placed in, and which itself is what sits in the bottom of the LoafNest. Whereas the cast-iron casserole is made in China, the liner is made in France. And perhaps that explains why the cost of replacing the liner is more than half that of the entire kit! (Wekigai, the manufacturer, claims that the liner “is designed to last for at least 1000 uses and with proper care will last 2000-3000 uses.”)
   But here’s the thing: you don’t need to use the liner at all! On the very first loaf we baked, in our haste and excitement, we forgot to use the liner. (Otherwise, we followed the LoafNest instructions precisely.) And the result was a perfect loaf, with crispy crust, lovely crumb, and oven spring, as evidenced in the accompanying photographs. And the bread came out of the casserole without any sticking at all. Well, we figured we’d pay the price when clean-up time arrived, since the liner is touted as keeping anything from sticking to the casserole. But there was no price to pay: the clean-up was simple and easy — nothing stuck.
   Only time will tell whether we can continue to do without the liner. We’ll report back later. But with or without the liner, we have to admit that this thing really works, and produces a beautiful loaf of bread. It’s far from the least expensive way to go, but if you haven’t had success by any other means, it’s probably the best choice out there.
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   UPDATE, a year and a half later: The LoafNest continues to make beautiful bread, and we have given up completely on the silicone liner. It’s simply not needed. The baked loaf comes out of the Nest easily, and no dough sticks to the interior. None. So I wonder whether Wekigai might consider offering the liner as an optional accessory, which would give those who feel they do not need it a less expensive alternative.
   One final word about Wekigai, the small family-run company that makes the LoafNest. I had some questions about mine and contacted the company about them. My questions were addressed promptly, courteously, and appropriately. It’s great to know that there are dedicated people who are serious about cooking and cookware standing behind the products they sell. We bake virtually all our own bread now, and can’t imagine what we’d do without our LoafNest.

8. 

   Alexandra TALAI – 20 September 2024

   C’est un beau kit pour faire du pain. C’est cher mais la très bonne qualité est là.
   Il manquait la partie liner à la reception, mais heureusement j’ai pensé à contacter le vendeur. La réponse a été rapide, quasi immédiat pour un weekend. Il ont expédié la pièce immédiatement.
   Les 5 étoiles general sont surtout pour la qualité du vendeur.

9. 

   Fraluc – 20 September 2024

   Ottima pentola..cuoce bene..piccola pecca i manici son un po’ difficili da gestire quando e ‘ appena uscita dal forno

10. 

    AS – 20 September 2024

    Inconvenientes en el suministro resueltos sin problema: no entregaron el primer pedido a precio Flash, pero sí devolvieron el pago; tuve que volver a comprar a precio habitual y llegó sin forro SaSa, pero con excelente servicio de Wekigai me lo remitieron por separado. Destaca su cortesía, eficiencia y suma profesionalidad.
    Cómo panarra de muchos años aprecio la comodidad de uso del LoafNest. Es robusto al ser de hierro, bien terminado dentro y fuera, tiene un tamaño óptimo y goza de forro separado de SaSa de Francia, lo que permite transferir la masa fácilmente del bol/ banneton.
    Generalmente trabajo con mi método tradicional de sourdough, no cuesta nada adaptar al uso del LoafNest en lugar de horneado libre sobre placa de horno desde el banneton, o dentro de otra cacerola con tapa de barro. El forro de SaSa es mucho más fácil que la manipulación de papel siliconado o Silpat normal.
    Ojo: el forro de SaSa no funcionaría como banneton para la fase de fermentación, es demasiado flexible.
    Útil accesorio para simplificar el proceso, sobre todo para hacer un solo pan, el precio es elevado. Servicio cliente de fabricante inmejorable.