Bread Cloche ,  Burgundy

I’m new to Emile Henry products and on my 48th Wedding Anniversary my wife gave me a Charcoal Bread Cloche. It is by far the best pan I’ve ever used for sourdough bread. Very, very pleased with your product. I like the shape of the dome and low profile of the base. It allows the bread to get the full oven spring. Also I don’t worry about burning myself on inserting the dough. Had been using a deep cast iron Dutch Oven. The only problem is now I’m thinking about the new pizza pan you came out with.

My first loaf in the cloche is a roaring success. I scaled back a sourdough recipe that called for 1 cup starter and 5 cups flour to 75% and it worked really well. The crumb is nicely chewy, and the crust is perfect: crisp but not too hard to chew. I am especially happy with the bottom crust, which would come out way too hard in my Dutch oven but is just right in the cloche. I used flour on the baking surface and it did stick in a couple of places, but I expect that to improve over time. I look forward to trying out other recipes in this!

Used today for 1st time for bagels. I could only fit 4 in the cloche, and so experimented with putting the rest in the oven on a small cookie tray next to the cloche. The difference was amazing. Cloche added more rise, "chewyness", and crunch to the dough. Baking time was longer in the cloche. Wish they made with a 14 or 18 inch bottom for more capacity, and so I could use for home pizza, which will be my next experiment! I ordered another.

The Bread Cloche is quite simply the best baker I have ever used. I have used it for all kinds of rustic breads, both yeast breads and sourdough breads. With that being said, I do depart slightly from the instructions given in the Instruction Booklet. The booklet (page 26) tells you to let the dough rise in the covered cloche at room temperature for its second rise. When it is fully risen, the booklet tells you to put the cloche, containing the dough, into a cold oven and turn the oven on to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Then bake the bread for 1 hour. What I do is place a floured baker's canvas in something round such as a colander and put the dough in that for the second rise. At the same time, I put both the dome (top) and platter (bottom) of the uncovered cloche in the oven and heat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit . When the dough is fully risen, I cover the platter (bottom) of the cloche lightly with cornmeal, invert the dough onto the platter of the cloche and cover it with the dome. I think the advantage of my method is that gives increased oven spring. The disadvantage is the it increases the chances of being burned. Either way, You will get some of the best and crustiest bread you have ever eaten

I bought this at the recommendation of one of my artisan bread books and love it! I've baked many a loaf in it and have had no problems. I use a piece of parchment paper because it makes the bread easier to move onto the pan and makes clean up a breeze. I liked the Cloche so well that I immediately ordered the Bread Loaf Baker.