“I've now made three loaves with my new pan and they are the best loaves I've ever made. The oven spring is amazing and the lovely holes in my sourdough are like nothing I've ever bought from professional bakers.
Beautifully crafted my Challenger pan is going to be a new family heirloom for sure.”
“A brilliant bit of kit. I use the cheats sourdough method for the dough (Panasonic bread machine) and second proof for one hour before adding to the pan. Excellent oven spring and superb crust. I don't use ice cubes but do line the base with baking parchment which seems to cut down on the need for re-seasoning. One tip, the cast iron gets extremely hot and may defeat your oven gloves. I always use a pair of conservator type cotton gloves inside each oven glove.”
“A stylish product which serves it's purpose very well.Temperature is maintained and the bread has a much better rise now.The handles on the side make the pan easy to handle.Really,really pleased with this purchase.”
“Whilst I can achieve similar results with a standard cast iron enameled Dutch Oven, as a very keen would be Artisan baker (6 loaves a week), I like the slightly better results, it's safer, holds steam from ice cube method well and can cope with bigger batards (and shortish baguettes). I tried two 700g dough batards in one bake, but with oven spring they fused with each other. It's a luxury and arguably one I could have not bothered with, but I have no regrets. I've no problems lifting the Challenger bread pan, but for some people this could be an issue. Keeping it well seasoned has not been a problem using sunflower oil and to keep fuss and bother to a minimum I just spray on a bit where needed every few bakes and run it in with my fingers/palm of hand and put into oven at 250c to preheat for an hour as normal (it's going to smoke a little but my bakes are unaffected). Overall, if you've got the money and enjoy baking bread, I'd highly recommend this product which is bullet-proof (literally!)”
“I am really pleased with my purchase. It took me quite a while to save enough and had enough justifications to make the move. The quality of this bread pan is unquestionably good. On my first try, the crust of my loaf did turn out to be on the darker side as compared to when I was using the Lodge combo cooker. I guess I will need some more practices to make it perfect.
Days after my first bake with this Challenger Bread Pan, there was a rust spot at the edge of the doom cover. I quickly rubbed the rust off, applied a bit of cooking oil on the spot and bake the doom cover at the highest temperature setting of my oven. This solved the problem.
In addition, thumbs up to BakeryBits in handling my order by packing it securely and my order was delivered to Sarawak without a hitch. Overall, great bread pan, great buying experience. Thanks to BakeryBits.”
