@leggo PE Yeah, starters kinda frighten me, but I've been following/doing some of the KAF bakealongs to help me get into the mood. My weekends are kinda a mess. I have horseback riding on Sundays/I'm at the barn for a good chunk of time, and I usually visit my parents on Friday night-to Sunday morning, and I don't feel like taking over their wonderful kitchen (they have a great 8'x3' peacock granite island that would be wonderful for kneading/rolling out thin pastry). So I can really only bake/experiment during the week. Which means longer proves/letting a dutch oven heat beforehand becomes a very calculated affair/I need to plan everything out beforehand.
I do want to use the dutch oven! I got a Kenmore kinda cheap due to a K-Mart closing in my parents town, and the red enamel matches my KitchenAid that I liberated from my parents. My dad had bought it really cheap with coupons/
gift cards, but then never used it. I made sure to "steal it" in open view of my dad so he had the opportunity to complain about it. Are you using a non-enameled dutch oven? I know sometimes when I use my seasoned cast iron to make crepes it causes a little firmness if I don't really grease/butter it beforehand just because the heat/sugar cause a nice sticky seal?
The cold dutch oven method is something I was actually researching! Low and slow! It's something I'd like to tinker with, because I know some dutch ovens actually get messed up if pre-baked with nothing inside them (I've heard this, and I don't want to ruin my new one right out of the gate).
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@knight1fox3 I see what you did there. I had a lot of strange looks discussing dutch ovens with my mom while shopping. I'm the youngest child of a large Polish family. I have experienced "traditional" dutch ovens too many times to count, and all under duress.
As for the cookies looking like stamps-that's what springerle are! They're a cookie "stamp" that is pressed into a thin cookie dough, usually anise flavored, that are then left out for 24-hours to set the form before baking. They actually don't change shape/look that much different when cooked. My dad likes them a ton, due to it being very Ukrainian/Czechoslovakia, and they actually get better as they age (3-month old cookies are the bomb!).