Do you like the especially crisp crust that you get from bread baked in a bakery with a brick oven? Well, now you can have it at home.
James Beard once said that the cloche gave him bread that was “nothing short of phenomenal.” Who is going to argue with him?
This method of baking bread depends on trapped steam from the dough to create a perfect crust. The clay pot has the added benefit of being porous, so moisture is trapped, but also conducted away from the surface as the bread bakes. Another plus is that the dough’s final rise inside the covered dish obviates the need for plastic wrap.
It turns your regular oven into a brick oven, and the quality of your bread will amaze you. It browns beautifully, has a crispy, chewy crust that seems to caramelize the sugars in the crust differently. There is no need to spray water or create steam in the oven, because the steam is created inside the cloche by the bread itself.
Some cooks tips for getting the best performance from your cloche.
* Place a thin layer of coarsely ground corn meal on the interior base of the cloche. The will prevent the bread from sticking to the surface
* Use parchment paper instead of the corn meal, if desired
* DO NOT PRE-HEAT your oven (Yes, read this correctly!). Turn the cold oven to 450° and set the timer for about 40-45 minutes for a 20-24 oz. loaf.
* After the 40-45 minutes, remove BOTH the top and bottom of the cloche set from the oven.
* Return the bread to the oven, placing it directly on the metal shelf. (Do not use a baking sheet.) The will allow you to bake artisan breads with a crackling crust. The interior texture (crumb) will be moist and chewy.
Do you use professional bake ware from Pampered Chef or Williams Sonoma? Ours is priced well below theirs, and will give you the same results. Do you have a recipe for bread? I would love it of you would share it with us. Please post it in the comments!
Print Healthy Whole Grain Bread Looking for a healthy but delicious vehicle for your favorite jams and spreads? Our Healthy Whole Grain Bread baked in our Covered Bread Pan is delicious as a side for soups and stews or on its own as a little treat. Prep: About
Print We’re excited to have our Shortbread Pans featured yet again by Martha Stewart! While all of our Brown Bag Designs Shortbread Pans come with a book of recipes designed specifically for our pans, third-party shortbread recipes work in our pans as well. Martha Stewart
Print Easy No Knead Bread If you’ve never baked bread before and want to try it, this is the recipe for you! With just five ingredients and little prep work, this recipe is as easy as it is delicious. Use it to make a sandwich
Handcrafting functional art in the USA since 1977.
Receive 10% off your first order! Sign up for recipes, sales announcements and more.
2 Responses
The bottom plate cracked the first time I used this…
Hi Hannah. Thanks for your feedback. We take the quality of our products very seriously and like to work with customers to help resolve issues whenever they should arise. We hope you found our suggestions and solutions helpful when our team reached out recently about this retired product.