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Every detail of the Challenger Bread Pan® was crafted with the bread baker in mind.

  • Made in the U.S.A. – Heirloom quality construction you’ll pass down through generations!
  •  Black Cast Iron – Delivers powerful radiant heat to the bottom and the top of your dough.
  • Versatility – Bâtards, Boules, Baguettes. Ciabatta, Focaccia, Pizza. Cinnamon rolls, Sandwich loaves, Dinner rolls, and even Chicken. The Challenger bakes them all to perfection.
  • Domed Lid – Traps the perfect amount of steam you need for bread with crackling crust, rich color, open scores, and full volume.
  • Improved Design – Now even easier to bake with, thanks to our new handle design and placement, and 10% lighter weight for easier lifting and handling.

US$299.00

In stock

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Your Challenger Bread Pan® has been pre-seasoned and is shipped ready to use. Prior to your first bake, simply wipe the pan with a damp cloth. Minor smoking may occur during your first few bakes. This is normal and safe and will not affect your bread. The smoking will soon dissipate. 

Follow our Care & Use instructions for tips on using your pan for the first time, as well as how to easily clean and re-season your pan with our Cast Iron Care Kit.

Store your Challenger Bread Pan in a dry place.

EXTERIOR (Includes Handles)
Length 15.4 in / 392 mm
Width 12.5 in / 317 mm
Height 5.4 in / 136 mm

INTERIOR
Length 11.5 in / 292 mm
Width 9 in / 228 mm
Height 5 in/ 127 mm

WEIGHT
Total 20.0 lbs / 9.07 kg
Lid 11.3 lbs / 5.12 kg
Base 8.7 lbs / 3.94 kg

MATERIAL
Our pan is made from cast iron with the following percentages of other metals: carbon 2.5-4.2, silicon 1.0-3.0, manganese 0.15-1.0, sulfur 0.02-0.25, phosphorus 0.02-1.0.

Challenger Breadware Shop A
Challenger Breadware Shop A

Bring on the Heat

We made the Challenger out of thick, black cast iron because it is proven to absorb, retain, and radiate heat—just what your dough needs. We shaped the cover like a loaf of bread to bring radiant heat as close as possible to help your dough’s oven spring and bloom. It’s a self-contained oven within your oven so that heat is not lost when you open the oven to take the cover off.

With handles large enough for oven mitts, you’ll easily load your dough, place and remove the cover, and safely remove your perfect loaf.

The Perfect Amount of Steam

Steam is what produces bread with crackling crust, rich colors, open scores, and full volume. The loaf bakers want! And we’ve all searched for videos of baking hacks that demonstrate how to add steam to home ovens—yet most of it escapes the minute the oven door opens. We designed the Challenger to ensure a tight seal between the cover and the base, trapping the steam your dough needs while baking.

One Pan To Rule Them All

Small combo cookers yield small boules. Dutch ovens have bakers cutting elaborate parchment slings to lower dough without burning their hands (or degassing the dough!). Baking stones and steels require even more elaborate workarounds to create steam. Clay bakers crack.

No more baking workarounds. The Challenger is designed for you to bake all your favorite breads. It’s easy to load and score your dough. The sealed cover traps the steam you need. Your Challenger won’t crack. In fact, it’s made to last for generations.

THE RIGHT PAN. BAKERS AGREE.

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Heat: Absorb, Retain, Radiate.

The 5-volume tome called Modernist Bread delved deeply into every aspect of making bread. After thorough testing of many vessels for baking bread at home, the authors determined their favorite was a cast iron combination cooker—an upside down Dutch oven. Except for a very small 3.5 quart model, testers found that other combination cookers didn’t seal well enough to bake professional-quality bread in a home oven. The authors declared that black cast iron “does an excellent job of absorbing, retaining, and radiating heat.” So we designed the perfect pan—a perfectly sealed cover and the right heat—for baking a variety of bread shapes in a home oven.

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Challenger Pan Profile  x

Steam: Trapped.

Chad Robertson started the artisan bread revolution for home bread bakers with his first book, Tartine Bread. He knew that professional bakers saturate their ovens with steam to achieve a moist heat environment to produce bread with crackling crust, rich colors, open scores, and full volume. As home ovens are designed to reduce moisture, Robertson tried many methods for creating steam in a home oven, suggesting that the “sealed environment of a dutch oven solves this problem.” The goal is to trap enough moisture for results similar to a professional deck oven. The sealed environment of the Challenger achieves that goal. Perfectly.

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Handles: Perfectly Placed.

Chad Robertson also acknowledged that even with the benefits of steam, the Dutch oven is too deep—it’s difficult to get well-proofed dough into it without degassing or burning your hands. The Challenger is essentially an upside down Dutch oven with, as Baker Alex Melanidis describes, “multiple and strategically positioned handles.” Bread Magazine’s François Thibeault noted, “The handles are at the right spot, keeping my hands safe when grabbing the pan in and out of the oven.”

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Challenger Breadware Shop C

Made just for you.

Our Challenger Bread Pan is the only pan on the market where every single detail was designed with the bread baker in mind. Its thick cast iron and perfectly sealed environment will ensure you bake better bread every time.

Artisanal.

Our pan is poured and hand-seasoned in the United States. It is handcrafted every step of the way just as your bread is handcrafted. Once you start baking bread, you’ll be hooked. Good-bye to the factory-made bread that lines our grocery store shelves—and hello to a revolution in flavor and quality.
Challenger Breadware Shop C
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Heirloom quality.

Our Bread Pan is designed to last. The Challenger can be passed down to your family, welcoming generations of home bakers to come.

Crafted with the Baker in mind.
Every. Last. Detail.

The handles are placed intuitively and make for very easy handling of the pan in and out of the oven. I like how the shape conforms to my dough—no wasted space. And the pan has a tight seal around the edges to trap steam. Importantly the pan also has a low profile so you can easily get your dough in the pan with minimal risk of injury.
Kristen, Baker, @fullproofbaking
So awesome! I gotta say, it feels great in the hand and looks damn sexy! And check out all that space! It’s just plain sexy as hell!
Trevor Jay Wilson, Author, Open Crumb Mastery, @trevorjaywilson
Up to the challenge! They are a dream to load, rotate, and uncover with two sets of handles for easy access. It works perfectly for both batard and boules and is by far the best bread baking vessel I have used.
Guy Frenkel, Baker, @ceorbread

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