I thought my grandma's "put a pan of water in the oven" trick was an old wives tale until my bread stopped coming out like a brick

Simon Sanchez · 2026-10-16T03:10:04.691033+00:00

My grandma kept telling me to put a small pan of water on the bottom rack when I bake bread, and I rolled my eyes for probably two years because it sounded like something from a 1950s cookbook. Last Saturday I finally tried it with my usual recipe, one loaf with the water pan and one without, same dough, same oven at 425 for 35 minutes. The loaf with the water pan rose about a third higher and the crust came out thin and crackly instead of rock hard, while the other one was dense enough to use as a doorstop. I looked it up after and the steam keeps the crust soft long enough for the dough to actually expand, which makes sense now that I think about it. I'm not saying it fixes everything, because my scoring still looks like I did it with a butter knife in the dark. Does anyone else keep a water pan in the whole time, or do you pull it out partway through to get a darker crust?

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I thought my grandma's "put a pan of water in the oven" trick was an old wives tale until my bread stopped coming out like a brick | Baking Fails And Wins - Opinions Matter