How Your Oven Temperature Impacts The Softness Of Your Bread Crust

From start to finish, bread is notoriously sensitive to the warmth of its cooking environment. We've written before about the key temperature consideration to remember when you're proofing dough, and we've talked about how the poor conductivity of certain pan materials can heat loaves unevenly, leading to disappointing results. Not surprisingly, the temperature of your oven itself is also an important factor in the texture of your crust.

Most bread is baked between 320 and 500 degrees Fahrenheit. If you're making a sandwich loaf, dinner rolls, or another kind of bread that should be soft and pillowy, your recipe will probably tell you to set your oven at the lower end of that range and keep it constant throughout the bake. That will allow the sugars to brown, giving your loaf a lovely golden crust that's still tender to the bite. Meanwhile, baguettes demand a thin, crackly crust, made possible by the fast Maillard reaction that takes place when you put your dough into a very hot oven, at least 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Elsewhere, Dutch oven bread recipes often call for pre-heating your pan to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. This causes the dough to release steam when you place it in the pan, transforming the starches on the outside of your loaf into that signature brown, chewy crust.

While heat is important, the combination of heat and moisture can do even more to help you achieve the best results. When liquid is turned to steam inside a hot oven, it keeps the surface of the bread pliable, allowing it to keep expanding as it bakes. It also reacts with the sugars on the outside of the loaf to give you a browner, shinier crust. 

The easiest way to harness steam is to trap the dough's own moisture in the pan with it, as you do with a Dutch oven. Note that the magic happens in the first few minutes, so most recipes will suggest that you remove the lid and/or turn the heat down partway through your bake. You can also try other ways to supply your own steam. For example, some people use a spray bottle to wet down the sides of the hot oven just before baking. You can also preheat a rimmed baking sheet or shallow pan on the rack below the one where you'll bake the bread, then pour water into it when you start to bake to release a cloud of steam. (Choose a metal pan instead of glass to avoid the chance of the pan shattering when you add the water.) Once you start experimenting, you'll see how powerful the forces of heat and steam are to shape the outcome of your bread.