An easy way to remove staining from an enameled cast iron pot is to add a small amount of bleach (about 1/4 cup), dilute with tap water and (optionally) squirt in a little dishwashing liquid. Let the pot sit out over night. Discard water and rinse really well to get rid of bleach odor. This even works if you've scorched the bottom and have some baked on food residue. The Wolfgang line of enameled cast iron pots are nowhere near the quality of Le Creuset or other high end brands. Preheating an empty enameled cast iron pot in the oven for bread baking can weaken the enamel, making it more prone to chipping (and crazing). Since the enamel on the pot you have is already crazed, you might as well use it to bake bread. I've been using non-enameled cast iron dutch ovens for bread baking long before it was popularized by Bittman's article in the New York Times. One thing that bothers me is that it seems as though your risen dough, when ready to bake, still had some oil on it. Even with the no-knead recipe, bread dough has 2 rises - the bulk rise and then, after shaping, the final rise prior to baking. For the final fermentation, the dough is not put in an oiled bowl so there should be no oil on the risen dough when you place it in your preheated pot. A thin layer of any coarse meal (coarse corn grits, wheat bran, semolina, etc.) on the bottom of the pot prevents sticking. In fact, even for the first rise (the bulk fermentation) there is really no need to oil the bowl. Misting the bowl (or whatever rising container you're using) *lightly* with water (use a plant mister for this) is just as effective. Happy baking. Enjoy your pot.

I agree, I have cast iron pans that are decades old and they just get better, my favorite is as slick as teflon. The best seasoning I've found is to make french fries, the hot grease just soaks right in, but I normally coat my cast iron with crisco and put it into a hot oven when it needs seasoning. As Colleen mentioned, cast iron can be shattered, I cracked a nice skillet by taking it off a campfire and putting it into a bucket of cold water so that the kids wouldn't touch the hot pan. Sigh. I'm assuming this is not enameled cast iron, which is something different entirely. I wouldn't do something with a sweet sticky marinade right away, if ever. That stuff is going to accumulate into those little ridges and be a bear to get clean, although Colleen's boiling water method works well for me too. I think when you get used to it, and it becomes properly seasoned, you're going to love it, but there is definitely a learning curve with cast iron. Annie

Azzalea, after the first round they were brown but not at all sticky. The ones that were partly seasoned when I got them looked like the coating stuck well, but the two pieces that were unseasoned had only a brown sheen, maybe because the coating was thin? I seasoned them again tonight, at 350ð for almost 4 hours. The two pieces that started bare still aren't black but since they're for me I'll just start using them. Two of the others are for giving away but they look pretty good. One of the formerly bare pans seems to be for making some kind of donuts...it came with a recipe called "aebleskiver/munk" and you're supposed to add cooked apples or jam before turning them. While turning it over (with an oven mitt) to look at the coating on the hemispherical indents for the donuts, a finger on my bare hand grazed the hot metal, ow! Luckily it's just a 1/4-inch-square burn but after that I just turned the oven off because I'm tired of seasoning these pans. Do you all really get a good black coating with the 1-hour methods? Thanks for the advice all. I will probably shell out for Lodge pre-seasoned next time I need a skillet to own or give, but thanks to your help at least my corn sticks will stop sticking. Melissa

I was going to start a new thread for the pizza I made, but since you brought this back up, I will post the pizza photos here:Pizza right out of the oven and onto a trivet on my counter. Pizza moved to cutting board, and lifted to show the bottom of the crust.Leftover slice, the next day. The pizza did not at all stick to the cast iron; in fact, it shrank away from the sides a bit, which made lifting it that much easier. I used a cake lifter (shown in the second photo) to move the pizza to the board. I did not want to cut it inside the cast iron, and I needed to let it cool for a couple of minutes anyway. I put the dough into a cold pan (although I had been told by others to heat the pan first) because that is much easier, and I wanted to see if it would work, and it did! After stretching the dough into the pan, I let it rest/rise for a while because I was not ready to bake it yet. When I was ready to bake it, I sprinkled the crust with a supermarket blend of dried Italian herbs (very lightly), and then I sprinkled it with a bit of mozzarella cheese and baked it for 5 minutes at the highest temp my oven would go, probably 550°, with the convection setting on. Then I took it out and put the rest of the toppings on, which included thinly sliced strips of mesquite smoked turkey breast (with Kevin could not even taste), the sauce with jalapeños that I had made, and a mixture of mozzarella and Asiago cheeses (about 1 part Asiago to 2 or 3 parts mozzarella). I then finished baking it for 8 minutes more, and that seemed to be the exact amount of time it needed. It was not as thin a crust as I normally make, and it puffed up around the rim, but it tasted better than my thin crust pizza. Kevin and I were both very happy with how it came out, and I now prefer it to my thin crust pizza, but I did have to fold the slices when I ate them. I'm also glad that I sanded my pan before I used it, and I'm sort of glad that the pan is not too heavy! As for peppers - I also grew a mild chili called Tobago, which I think are similar to what you call Cachucha - they are mild and are supposed to be related to Habaneros, but for me, they do not have as much flavor, even considering the loss of heat. My favorite chilies now are the chocolate Habanero, but I neglected to plant any this year - so far. I might still start some, but it is difficult to get them to germinate, and three of my plants from last year have started regrowing from the base of their stalks, and so I am hoping to get more chilies from them this year. I still have sauce leftover from last year's crop, but I've noticed that the heat diminishes during storage :(. Since the name "Habanero" comes from Cuba, I thought that Cubans would like heat, but perhaps the name is misleading. I highly recommend this pizza pan! It is so easy to use - no need to heat it before adding the pizza - and I think it makes the best pizza. The main limitation is the size - it is only 13" diameter inside, and I used to make 14"-16" diameter pizzas. I have a pizza screen that is 17" diameter, but it will not fit in my oven, and I can use it only with the BGE. Here's a video of me stretching dough onto a 14" screen and a 16" screen: I made this video at the request of a friend's son who had had pizza at one of my pizza parties. These pizzas I parbaked in the oven and the finished them in the BGE.