If you’re up for baking bread, have you ever tried baking bread on the grill? It’s surprisingly easy and if you can do traditional bread, you can do this.
I refuse to turn on my oven when it’s this hot. To be honest, I don’t use my oven much in the summer at all because I hate heating up the house.
What do I do instead? I use my grill.
While I haven’t quite solved baking a cake on my grill, I do make pretty much everything else there from chicken kebabs to dessert pizza. I had a hankering for fresh bread, but I was not about to have the house heated by a 450-degree oven that was preheated before baking for 35 minutes.
How to Make Baked Bread on the Grill
Mix all ingredients together with a spatula in a container. Yes, you heard that right. This won’t feel quite like your traditional dough, but trust me.
Once it’s mixed together, cover it loosely – enough so that air can still get in – and let it sit on the counter for a couple of hours until it’s doubled in size.
Once it’s risen on the counter, you can either use it immediately or – my favorite – put it in the fridge for up to a week and pull it out whenever you’re ready to use it. This makes it the perfect make-ahead dough.
It’s easier to work with once it’s been refrigerated, but you can absolutely use it immediately after rising.
Cover a pizza peel fairly heavily in cornmeal so that it won’t stick. If you’re doing yours in a loaf pan, prepare the loaf pan as you normally would.
Coat the dough in your container with flour by just sprinkling it over the dough. Carefully lift it out and gently form it into a ball using as little movement as possible so that you don’t disturb all the work the yeast just did rising.
Place it on the cornmeal-covered pizza peel (or in your loaf pan) to rise for forty minutes. Cover it loosely with a barely damp, clean kitchen towel.
After the dough has risen for 20 of the 40 minutes, place your pizza stone and the heat-safe dish onto your grill. Turn on your grill to whatever you need to do to get it to 450 degrees, leaving the center burners off or on lower heat if at all possible.
Once the 40 minutes have passed, use a sharp knife dipped in flour to cut a tic tac toe or shell pattern in your bread. This helps your bread rise as it cooks rather than the crust trapping the rise and keeping it from being as soft and fluffy as it should be.
Once your dough is prepared like this, head outside, and place it on the pizza stone. Bring along a couple of cups of water with you, and add this to your heat-safe dish.
This creates steam inside your grill, which will make the crust of your bread crunchy rather than soft. It’s a neat trick, no?
Let the bread bake on the grill. Mine takes less time than in the oven. This one was ready in about 28 minutes.
Depending on the shape of your dough (loaf in a pan v boule), the size of your dough (bigger = longer cook time), the consistency of the dough (a drier dough cooks faster), and your grill’s temperature, it will take slightly different times to cook. You can peek at it after 20 or so minutes to see how it’s doing and judge from there.
Once it’s baked, remove it from the grill and let it sit for at least 10 minutes so that it can stop steaming inside. If you cut it while it’s still steaming hot, it dries out the bread that you don’t eat immediately. The steam escapes instead of staying in the bread.
Enjoy your bread in a sandwich or with soup or … my personal favorite when it’s fresh bread and still warm: slathered in butter and a little honey. Yum!
Bread On The Grill
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 1 teaspoon yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons flour extra
Instructions
- Mix together water, yeast, salt, and flour with a spatula in a container. Cover it loosely then let it rise on your counter for 90 minutes.1 cup water, 1 teaspoon yeast, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 cups flour
- Coat a pizza peel with cornmeal. Sprinkle flour over the dough, then carefully lift it out and gently form it into a ball. Place it on the pizza peel to rise for 40 minutes.1 1/2 teaspoons flour
- Twenty minutes into rise time, place your pizza stone and a heat-safe dish onto your grill. Heat to 450 degrees, leaving the center burners off or on lower heat if at all possible.
- Once bread finishes rising, use a sharp knife dipped in flour to cut a tic tac toe or shell pattern in the top of the bread.
- Place dough on the pizza stone, and add two cups of water to your heat-safe dish.
- Bake for 28-30 minutes, checking at 20 minutes to see how it looks. Remove baked bread from the grill and let it rest 10 minutes before you cut it.
Equipment
Notes
- This makes it the perfect make-ahead dough. It’s easier to work with once it’s been refrigerated, but you can absolutely use it immediately after rising.
- For more tips and tricks, be sure to read the full article above.
Nutrition
This site uses an online source to provide nutrition estimates as a courtesy. If you need exact values, please calculate yourself.
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Michelle – Desperation is the best source of inspiration, right? 😉 I like the idea of the toaster oven in the basement.
Tara – Mmmm naan. I may have to do that one next. I love that. 🙂
Robyn – I need a new grill first, but I can guarantee there will be a cake baked there someday!
I'm impressed. Now I can't wait to see what kind of cakes you bakeon the grill!
I haven't baked loaf bread on a grill, but have cooked naan bread… a sort of Greek flat bread. Grilled bread is very good.
What a great idea! I actually have a convection/toaster oven set up in my basement for baking in the summer.