Cast iron for stove-top baking? - advice needed!

[subfuscpersona]

I recently junked my counter-top electric oven/broiler. (I used it to cook small things when I didn't want to use the big oven - like small cassaroles or 1/2 a chicken.) Now I'm wondering if I could use my cast iron on the stove top for similar dry heat cooking.

I have a #8 and #10 skillet and a 5-qt dutch oven and I have cast iron lids for all of them. I could use round cake racks for a trivet if that's needed. Will I ruin the seasoning if I use them for dry-heat cooking on top of the stove?

Tell me your experience - give me your tips - advise me! TIA

ps: I did try roasting garlic this way (put the bulbs on a trivet in a covered pot) and that worked fine. Too chicken to try anything else.

pps: I have a gas stove

 

[scott123]

If you are trying to mimic an oven, then a trivet will always be essential. Without the air in between the food and the bottom of the pan, it'll be frying, not baking.

The other important consideration is air flow. Depending on what you are 'baking,' if the cover is on tight, moisture might condense on the lid and fall back onto the food. For this reason I would probably leave a little air space between the lid and pot. Not too much, though, since you want heat to collect.

Because of the poor conductivity of iron, in order to get a good roasting temp inside your 'oven' I think you might have to subject the bottom of your pan to temps that will cook the seasoning off. I guess if you were okay with just warming food rather than baking it, then your seasoning should be fine.

Iron also takes a long time to preheat. I've never timeit, but I'd say it could take as long as 15 minutes for your oven to preheat to 250. Once it does preheat, it has a tendency to hold that heat for a while, though.

Overall, though, I think you're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. I'm all for DIY/money saving solutions, but this might be too much trouble for what it's worth.

 

[Michael in FtW]

I agree with Scott - you're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. You could also make square tires for your car to put more tread in contact with the road than a round one, but I doubt you would like the end result.

A Dutch oven was a portable makeshift on the trail "oven" - not just a cast iron pot. It had a flat bottom with 3 legs, straight sides, a flat top with a lip around the edge, and a bail handle. Since an oven applies heat from more than one direction - to use it as an oven it was either placed over a bed of coals and coals we placed on top (the reason for the lip around the edge - it kept to coals from falling off) - or, you dug a circular pit a couple of inches larger then the oven, lined the bottom with coals, put in the pot, filled in around the side ot the pit and pot with coals, and more coals on top. If you just set it on the coals with the lid on - it was just a lidded pot being heated only on the bottom and would not function as an oven.

Cast iron is not a great conductor of heat - so no matter what you do the top will always be cooler than the bottom. Not a good thing for even baking. And, if you don't have the lid firmly in place you're going to reduce what heat conductivity you get to the top. Take two quarters and stack thim up and when you look down you will see the edges are touching all the way around (greater conductivity) - not move the top coin off to the side a little and you will notice the edges of the coins now only touch at 2 points. So, not only will leaving the lid askew reduce the conductivity from the pot to the lid, you are also allowing the heat inside the pot to escape.

As for ruining the seasoning ... you could. But, before that point you will ruin the food your trying to cook. Think about how you season cast iron ... you heat it to the smoke point of the fat/oil you used to season it, and that fuses a thin film of the fat/oil to the pot - like what happens to the cylinder walls of a car with an internal cumbustion engine during the break-in period. Before you ruin the seasoning on your cast iron it will have to exceed the smoking point and actually burn the fused layer off. But, before you reach the point the seasoning burns off and turns to ash (you can do this by running your cast iron through the cleaning cycle in a self-cleaning oven) you will fill the pot with acrid burning smoke.

I have been trying to figure out why anyone would want to do this and the only explanation I can come up with is one I hear people use to justify a standard nothing fancy (convection or rotissery) counter-top oven/broiler ... they don't want to heat the kitchen up by using the "big" oven. Well, an oven is insulated to retain heat - a cast iron pot isn't. Assuming you could dry-heat a dutch oven on the stovetop to a point just below smoke point and bake 1/2 a chicken ... you're going to be radiating a lot more heat directly into the kitchen than the oven would.

I'm sure if there was a way to use a Dutch oven as an oven by just heating the bottom then someone in the Dutch Oven Society or one of the Chuckwagon Cook-Off contestants would have found a way to do it. To date - I've never read of it. Roasting garlic doesn't take that much heat - but if you can work out how to stove-top roast/bake you could write a book.

 

[VegasDramaQueen]

Wow, I am surprised at your answer regarding the conductivity and heat retention of cast iron. The whole point of cooking with cast iron is that it is an excellent conductor of heat, and that nothing retains heat like cast iron. Everything I have ever read about cast iron says this. I cook almost exclusively on cast iron whether it's my Lodge black iron or my LeCreuset enameled iron. I can verify that it takes forever for food to cool down in cast iron than any pot I have ever used. Once it is heated to the temp you want it, it keeps the heat at that temp all through the cooking process. This is the reason people cook on cast iron as opposed to almost any other material. I know that the Boy Scouts use cast iron to "bake" in and if you want to try something, latch onto the Boy Scouts' recipe for peach cobbler, baked in a Dutch oven over a fire. It is superb. I think they put hot charcoal on the lid to keep the heat in, but the thought occurs to me that you could put this on a BBQ grill and do the same thing.

 

[choclatechef]

This confuses me as well, since I am of the opinion that vegasdramaqueen has stated.

I am open to trying to understand your reasoning though. I just don't get it.

 

[Michael in FtW]

VegasDramaQueen - you've answered your own question without realizing it. This should answer your questions too, choclatechef.

A metal that is a good heat conductor will heat up quickly - and on the other side of the coin - it will also cool off quickly. As you have noticed, cast iron takes time to come to temp - but it retains the heat longer than anything else. That is because it is a poor conductor of heat. No voodoo here. But, that is how cast iron does it's magic.

And as for the Boy Scout peach cobbler - yep, you put coals on top of the dutch oven otherwise you wind up with a half-raw "crust". It needs the coals on top to make it into an oven ... refer back to what I said in my previous post.

 

[choclatechef]

Duh! I knew that! I just wasn't thinking! Thanks for explaining.

 

[180pilot]

I have been using an aluminum Dutch Oven on camper stove top to bake pies and biscuits, as I have no oven in pop- up style camper. It is a small 10" GSI hard anodized legless style. I put another skillet top on top of it with insulation in it to keep heat from escaping from cast top. Works well with a low flame, it gets to 350º-400º inside with no damage to outside of pot. I put pies etc. on top of small stainless steel trivet. Trying frozen pizza next!

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Aluminum is a great conductor of heat, unlike cast iron. That is why it's often sandwiched between layers of SS, to carry heat more evenly to all parts of SS pots and pans, thus reducing hot spots. The sides and top of my aluminum pressure cooker get very hot, nearly as hot as the bottom of the pot.

Michael was absolutely correct. I've gone into the thermodynamics of cast iron and ceramics as insulators in other posts and won't do it here. Suffice it to say that your cast iron dutch oven is great for what it was intended for, but will not work as a stove-top oven.

It will work as a stove-top slow cooker though. But you will have to stir the food frequently.

Make stews, or braised foods in it and it will work fine. You can even use it to make a proper pillaf, if you are very carefull and practice a few times. You can make stove-top caseroles, pasta dishes, and braise meats. But you can't roast or bake foods in it, at least not on the stove-top.

And that's the way it is on Friday, January 12, 2007.

Seeeeeeeya; Goodweed of hte North.

 

[Candocook]

I know the OP has said cast iron, but I will add that enamel cast iron (like Le Creuset, etc.) should not be heated to high heats with nothing in the pan.
If Sub wants to replace his oven, look on Amazon. I have been using mine a lot more in recent time and enjoy it a lot. Roasting peppers and tomatoes, one or two potatoes, etc.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Great posts Michael!

 

[subfuscpersona]

stove top "baking" with cast iron cookware

I am the oriiginal poster. I am amazed that after 3 years there have been some recent posts to this thread.

QUESTION: this post (with photos) re
using an aluminum Dutch Oven on camper stove top to bake pies and biscuits seems to indicate that a dutch oven has been used successfully to "bake" both pies and biscuits on an ordinary stove top. However, I can't decipher what the poster means, Can anyone elucidate?

I do routinely and successfully use my 5-qt cast iron Dutch oven to make roasted garlic. Interested readers can click on this DC thread re Easy Stove-top Roasted Garlic Using Cast Iron

Does anyone else want to contribute to this thread?

 

[180pilot]

I thought I made it pretty clear including photos? What Part don't You understand????

 

[subfuscpersona]

re stove top "baking" with cast iron - ? for 180pilot

I thought I made it pretty clear including photos? What Part don't You understand????

I really looked hard at the pictures and thanks for posting them...however, I do still have questions...

I have been using an aluminum Dutch Oven on camper stove top to bake pies and biscuits... It is a small 10" GSI hard anodized legless style. I put another skillet top on top of it with insulation in it to keep heat from escaping from cast top.

> from your photos, it looks like you're using a 2nd lid in addition to the lid of your dutch oven as extra insulation. Why isn't the lid that comes with the dutch oven sufficient? Is the 2nd lid trying to mimic the outdoor cooking practice of putting hot coals on the lid of the dutch oven? Did you try baking without the 2nd lid?

> what is the material used for the insulation of the 2nd lid? Why is it necessary to
use an insulation material with the 2nd lid?

> if I use an upside-down skillet for a 2nd lid, how far down over the dutch oven (with its lid) should it go? does it matter?

> I only have cast iron cookware. I know that heavy aluminum heats and cools faster than cast iron. However, for stove-top "baking", do you think the material makes a difference?

thanks 180pilot - I'm really looking forward to your answers...SF

 

[180pilot]

More illumination:

Aluminum, is a much better conductor of heat then cast iron. That's why this works, as the heat is distributed to the air surrounding the item being baked fast and evenly. Heat wants to rise, the second lid with insulation keeps heat from escaping from the top of the pot as fast as it would without it, forcing more heat down on food, just like the insulation in your attic. The extra lid I found just fits inside the rim on the oven lid. I used layers of 1/8" ceramic sheet insulation used on aircraft firewalls with last layer being heavy aluminum foil. I didn't want to use fiberglass, with the chance small fibers could get into food. I haven't tried a bake without the extra lid. However, perhaps you are familiar with the Coleman camp stove top folding oven, 12"x 12", made from sheet steel coated with aluminum. It appears it works also, but may be slow, I plan on getting one to test against this set up. The drawback I may see, is with items like frozen pies that have lots of moisture, the one I baked was not as done in middle as sides, which I believe might be due to the frozen ice crystals pooling on top center as it heated, creating trapped steam. OR, I just did not bake it long enough? The biscuits came out exactly as done in regular oven, as I baked a "control" batch at same time. Other hard part is guessing temperature, I'm working on a thermometer too.

The main reason for this contest is feeding hunters and fishermen out of my aircraft in the bush. This aluminum oven is light, small and also doubles as a pot for other purposes. But, I would not use one without the hard anodizing. Inside a cabin tent, with below freezing temperatures outside, limits use to the top of a Kerosene stove, hot biscuits,rolls and cobblers are very welcome. Of course if weather permits, it can still be used in the conventional manner with wood coals top and bottom.

 

[S.F. Clark]

My experience

My woodstove is hot for 16 hours a day from mid-October to mid-May. I use it to heat water in big tea kettles; why not bake in cast iron?

I have two styles of dutch oven: one with legs for use with coals from an outdoor fire and one with a flat (no legs) bottom. I used the flat bottom dutch oven. On a wood stove the whole bottom of the pan is heated uniformly. My d. oven has a tight cover.

I did not measure the oven temperature, just popped in several potatoes onto the cast iron trivet on the bottom. The potatoes did generate a lot of steam. Next time I'll leave the lid slightly a-jar. No Worries; there's plenty of heat. I've got fine baked potatoes. So Easy!

I determine when items are "done" by smell and texture. When they smell good and respond properly to a poke with a fork they are done. Next time I'll put crumpled aluminum foil beneath the potatoes because my cast iron trivet got hot enough to scorch the potato a bit.

SO: I am pleased to discover that a cast iron dutch oven, designed for cooking near an open fire, can be used for stove top baking with the heat source solely on the bottom.