Recipes / Bread
Potbrood (pot bread in the coals)
A round white loaf proved and baked in a greased cast-iron pot, with a few coals underneath and most of the heat on the lid.
- Prep
- 25 min
- On the fire
- 55 min
- Plan ahead
- 1 1/2 hours rising
- Serves
- 1 large loaf, about 10 thick slices
- Done at
- 200°F (93°C)
Ingredients
Method
Cooking on gas?
- Use the closed gas grill as an oven, so you do not need coals on the lid.
- Set up for indirect heat at 180 to 200°C (350 to 400°F): light the outside burners and leave the one under the pot off.
- Put the potjie, lid on, over the unlit burner, close the grill and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, turning the pot a quarter turn every 15 minutes. Check it at 40 minutes, as in the recipe.
- Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add the water and oil and mix to a soft, slightly sticky dough.
- Knead on a floured surface for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and springs back when pressed.
- Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover it, and leave it in a warm place for about 1 hour, until doubled in size.
- Grease the inside of a flat-bottomed potjie of about 5 litres (5 quarts), or a cast-iron Dutch oven, and the inside of the lid with butter. The bread may rise up to the lid.
- Press the air out of the dough and shape it into a smooth ball. Put it in the pot, put the lid on and leave it near the warm fire for 30 minutes, until puffy.
- Set the pot on a ring of 5 or 6 low coals, not touching the base. Pile 15 to 20 hot coals evenly over the lid.
- Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. Turn the pot a quarter turn every 15 minutes and replace the lid coals as they burn down.
- Check after 40 minutes. Brush the ash off the lid first, then lift it.
- Turn the loaf out onto a rack or a clean cloth and leave it for 15 minutes before you slice it.
Done when: the crust is deep golden, the loaf sounds hollow when you tap the bottom, and a thermometer in the middle reads about 93°C (200°F).
Tips
- The bottom burns first. If the base is dark at the 40-minute check, take all the coals away from under the pot and bake from the lid only.
- Lining the pot with a round of baking paper makes the loaf easy to lift out.
- Cut a deep cross in the top just before it goes on the coals if you want the loaf to rise evenly.
Potbrood is farm and camp bread from the days before every house had an oven. Dough was baked in the same cast-iron pot used for stew, buried in or set over the coals with more coals on the lid. It is still baked at braais and on camping trips. The dough is close to the one used for roosterkoek, shaped into one big loaf.