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It seems Aldi is on a bread-baking kick. Just the other week, the discount grocer sold a bread maker in its middle aisle. Electric bread makers are a pretty standard kitchen appliance. You dump in the ingredients, turn it on, and it mixes and bakes a loaf without any additional work on your part.
Now, Aldi is selling yet another way to make homemade bread. This time, it’s a cast iron bread oven. This heavy piece of kitchen hardware looks like a dupe of a Le Creuset Bread Oven, which goes for $240 to $300 depending on what color you purchase. Let’s just say the Aldi knockoff is a lot cheaper.
You might be wondering how a cast iron bread oven works. Simply put, it’s used for making rustic loaves. You place the bread dough inside the cast iron bread oven, which you then put inside your conventional oven, and the steam inside the bread oven helps to produce a nice tall loaf with a thin and shiny crust.
You can get a similar effect baking your loaf in a traditional cast iron Dutch oven, but the cast iron bread oven is specially designed for baking bread, with a shallow lower pan and a taller lid. That heavy lid helps to trap steam inside the bread oven, which produces a better loaf.
Here’s more information about the Aldi cast iron bread oven.
What We Know:
The Crofton Cast Iron Bread Oven (Product Code: 709562) is an Aldi Find, which means it’s only in stores for a short time. Each store receives one shipment, and after that sells out, it’s gone unless Aldi decides to bring it back at some later point. Aldi does not offer online ordering for products not currently in stock at your local store.
This bread oven cost $24.99 at the time of publication. Obviously, that’s a lot less than the $300 you might pay on Le Creuset’s website. Le Creuset bread ovens go for about $300 on Amazon as well, and while I did find some other brands that went for less, you’ll still pay more than $100 for other cast iron bread ovens.
Here’s more information about the Aldi cast iron bread oven:
- Available in Blue Gradient or White
- Makes baking bread at home easy
- Interior diameter: 9″
- Features long-lasting porcelain enamel interior and exterior
- Oven safe up to 482 °F
- Bread recipe included
- Comes with a two-year warranty
- Suitable for all cooktops, including induction
What We Don’t Know:
We haven’t yet tried this cast iron bread oven, so we don’t know how well it works or how well it holds up to use. We also don’t know who provides warranty service for this product. And most importantly, we don’t know how closely this compares to a name-brand Le Creuset bread oven. We write open threads so readers can discuss Aldi products.
Did you purchase the Crofton Cast Iron Bread Oven? Tell us what you think of it in the comments below.
I hope other people have had good luck with this one. Can’t wait to hear from them!
DCS, oven is not high enough for it to have a pan like this with the knob on the top of the lid… Does it come off?
I suspect the knob is probably fastened to the lid by a metal screw. That was the case with the original knob on my Lodge 6qt. Dutch oven. (That wasn’t oven-safe at temps over 400F, so I replaced it with a metal drawer knob — which took the same size screw – from my local hardware store.) So you could probably unscrew the knob, then cover the resulting hole in the lid with aluminum foil.
Correct. I just purchased one today and can confirm the knob is screwed on the lid. I bake sourdough loaves 2x week—usually in my All Clad Dutch oven. For $25, I’m anxious to try this one!
I just picked up one today would love to know if you would share your sourdough recipe thank you
Can you adjust the oven shelving, I am so sorry I can’t remember the proper names of the removable things that items sit on in the oven.
Oven rack
If one bakes a lot of bread, or would like to bake a lot of bread, certainly $24.99 is a far more reasonable price for experimenting with a bread oven than 10 times that much for the Le Creuset version would be! I already own 3 Dutch ovens in various sizes, though, plus a bread machine, so I’d have to do a major purge of my kitchen’s pots & pans storage to find room to store something like this. (If it could multi-task for things besides bread-baking, it might be worth considering, though, especially at that $24.99 price point.)
i would be willing to try this
When will they make this available?
To answer the availability question, my local stores will have them on September 20th. I really don’t know when other cities or states will have them.
When it shows up in stores depends on whether your store sets new specials out on Sundays or Wednesdays. So for some parts of the U.S., this arrives in stores today, Sunday, September 17. For other regions, this will arrive in stores on Wednesday, September 20th.
Here’s more information: https://www.aldireviewer.com/do-aldi-ads-take-effect-on-sunday-or-wednesday/
My flyer said this Wednesday
Could multi-task tagine pot.
Good point!
I’m trying to figure out the popularity of making bread that is round/oval. I like bread that fits in my toaster. I know this is cast iron, so why is the interior also enamel? Doesn’t that negate some of the positive aspects of baking in cast iron?
Hi Pat. These are for making rustic crusty breads. I use my Dutch oven, but will go get one of these as soon as I get off work. Google “No Knead Harvest Bread”. The recipe will fit perfectly in this baker.
Thanks Bisa. I just googled, and several recipes came up. Is there a specific one that you recommend?
I have made just a plain crusty no knead bread. Will try the harvest bread this weekend. I’m excited. Lol
The recipe that comes with the Bread Oven, “Garlic Herb Bread” states to use hot water, flour, yeast, etc…..any baker knows that you cannot use HOT water with yeast.
Hopefully a beginner won’t blame the Bread oven for their recipe not turning out very well because the yeast was killed by hot water.
Thank you for saying this. I just got one of these ovens, and am researching what recipes I can use to make bread in this. I also want to make bread without yeast.
If you look on Pinterest you can find many no knead bread recipes that will work.
Good luck
was the garlic and herb the only recipe included? i purchased this yesterday and my box does not include the recipe booklet
Yes!
Bought this today ..I took out one of my oven racks and lowered the other a bit and it fits well..I’m going to try it out Saturday.. I’m looking forward to warm pumpernickel bread to go with my German schnitzel and kraut dinner!!
Good luck! Please let us know how it turns out!
I went to the local Aldi store when I got off yesterday. I was so disappointed…they were sold out! Hope your bread turns out good.
Purchased mine yesterday, I got the1st one, they were gone in under 5 minutes.
Can’t wait to try. I bake a lot of bread during
Soup season.
Any idea when it will be available in the UK. Could do with one of these for my sourdough baking.
I purchased the blue one yesterday (9/21) and baked a sourdough loaf this morn. I am so pleased with this Crofton Bread Oven that I’m trying to purchase a second one. The store where I purchased the first is now completely sold out. I’m trying another Aldi tomorrow that says in stock for the white only, which I will gladly take if it doesn’t sell out. I wish Aldi wasn’t the only seller.
I’m trying to find out if this fits six quart recipe. I found a no knead jalapeño cheese recipe I want to make and it calls for a six quart cast iron. do you happen to know the answer to this?
After seeing this, we went to Aldi and grabbed the last two of these they had. We bake sourdough fairly often, and usually use a regular Dutch oven. We tried this new one out this morning and it worked great. I wish I could post a photo. There was a slight discoloration of the pretty blue color from the oven heat, but not much, and we’re not really concerned about that because that happens. The bread came out perfect, although it did stick to the parchment a bit, which is unusual, so of course you would always want to use parchment. Otherwise this is a great buy and we’re very happy with it. Even if you don’t bake with it, I think they’re pretty enough to have out on a shelf somewhere you can see them. Thanks for the heads up on this!
I got to Aldi’s the first day of the sell knowing our store only had two so I got there when the store opened and was able to get one. I have baked bread and cast-iron before and it’s always turned out, but this was the best oven I’ve ever baked my artesian, cinnamon, raisin nut bread, in highly recommend . . I called a few of my family and friends around the state and out of state and they were all able to purchase one so I have a lot of happy, friends and family that will be baking. Delicious bread now. I tried to post the picture of my bread, but I was not able to because it is a nice looking like for Bread.. PS I followed the manufactures instructions on how long to preheat my oven because it was different than the original recipe and my bread turned out perfect.
I am in St. Louis. I cannot find this at three different stores I went to. When will it be available in St. Louis. My zip code is 63109. I would like to get one.
It was scheduled to arrive in St. Louis stores on September 20th. It was a highly anticipated product, though, so I’m not sure how long it lasted on store shelves.
Is it heavy? How much does it weigh.
I have one and used it twice ! I’m new to making bread so I’ll say that my first loaf was good but my second loaf was perfection ! Different recipe and the dough had to rise three times. I used a thermometer to check the water temp the second time, let the yeast sit in the water longer, used bread flour and fine Himalayan salt this time. I loved it and I’m so thankful to have found a bread oven. The manager at the Aldi I went to called around to other stores for me and found one white one. If you can get your hands on one I highly recommend it! Appreciate the help from the manager so much !
I would like to get one of these but I bake at 450 – 500′ and it says it can take up to 482′. Do you think going up to 500 will make much of a difference???