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Using a Cloche - Bread Baking

13 years ago

Santa Claus brought me a cloche for Christmas! I wanted one so I could make crusty breads (ciabatas). Now, I find myself a little at a loss as to what to do with it. I did make one bread from King Arthur Flour, No Knead Harvest bread. It was not pretty, but did taste good (crusty on the outside, tender on the inside). What other recipes do you recommend I make using it?

No, I haven't made a ciabata yet. That might be this weekend's project.

Here is a link that might be useful: No Knead Harvest Bread

This post was edited by booberry85 on Fri, Jan 4, 13 at 7:35

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Comments (4)

grainlady_ks
13 years ago
I love my Superstone La Cloche (bell-shaped) and Covered Baker (long loaf) because you don't need oven temperatures as high as when using a stone and get the same results. You also don't need to add moisture to the oven via hot water, spritzing, ice cubes, etc. which can actually damage heating elements. I use parchment paper in the bottom instead of cornmeal. I find cornmeal burns too easily - at least the freshly-milled cornmeal I mill and use. I also think semolina is a better choice than cornmeal because it doesn't burn as easily, but parchment paper works best for me.

You will find several recipes at the link below. Don't forget you can use it for non-bread things like Beef Tenderloin and Chicken Broccoli.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Bread Experience
booberry85
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks so much Grainlady! I'm going to try the Shepherd's Bread this weekend. Also, I had never thought of cooking things other than bread in the cloche!
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Dcarch, I can't say about all Chinese cooking - it's a big place - but we never had baked bread when I grew up. Buns were steamed and pancakes were fried in oil. Although, we had almond cookies and I suppose they were baked, but you didn't make those at home, you bought them. There was never any western-style bread at home, and I don't recall ever seeing dough ''rising'' or any mention of yeast. I do not know why this is so, but one reason may be that the typical Chinese home didn't have an oven. Just burners. I think this may be fairly typical in Asia, still - I think I read that in an article on Japanese home kitchens. So as far as home cooking goes, there's a lot of frying, boiling, steaming, braising - but not a whole lot of baking in a rack in an oven as we do it in the US. Restaurant cooking is different, there are roasted dishes, although often they are spit roasted. Another difference may have to do with wheat vs rice flour, but I can't say. We did use wheat flour at home, I don't know if that was something my grandmother learned after she came to the US. I can't ask her - she is 101 1/2 years old, still in good shape but not really up for a detailed discourse on cooking, you know. But I will ask my aunt and report back. Remember, again, China is big, we came from a little bit of it (Shanghai area) so what I think I know about Chinese home cooking may be completely wrong to someone whose family came from another part of China.
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Hey there to you too Chase, and what a nice Christmas suprise to run into you here :) Thank you all so very much for your advice. I have never worked beside someone who baked bread from hand so I never know exactly how to knead and what the bread should look or feel like, which is why I did love my bread machine for when I wanted to make homemade bread - it tended to turn out pretty well out of the bread machine before baking. I'm sure I will love my kitchen Aid for bread too, when I get the hang of it, as much as I love it for everything else. I'm not much of a kitchen gadget person but I do love my Kitchen Aid machine. I have carefully read all the advice - I wouldnt' be surprised to find that I might overknead the bread with the dough hook and I also didn't proof the yeast, because the dough always doubled I figured it was ok? Will carefully follow all the advice - some of it I have never heard of before - when I do a trial run on the honey buttermilk dinner rolls today. Thank you so VERY much for all the advice! A merry Christmas to you all :)
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I've been using a metal steamer pan with a hole drilled in to inject steam. Right fit but it works great. You have to be careful not to damage the IR broiler which the handle as it looks kind of fragile. Definitely a good use for the ball bearing rack as it's much easier to pull out with a stone. I just started using my baking steel which works great. Much thinner than a stone (1/4") which may help in your situation as well. The company can cut them custom for you as well. Cost me about $100. Really awesome. Check out their site. http://www.bakingsteel.com Mike
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Ugh, no wonder it was in the back of the shed! I'm so lazy, my enthusiasm for all of that might not be there. Since I already have the romertopf for bread, I might put this one in with the "donate to Goodwill" pile. Or I could try it a couple of times with greased parchment paper. Thanks for the tips though!! Very helpful! I appreciate very much that you took time to answer!
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lpinkmountain
13 years ago
I second the advice of using parchment paper. Otherwise my bread sticks as all get out! I made a great loaf but the bottom crust was melded to the pot. You can preheat or not, I've tried it both ways and don't notice a lot of difference. I've only made two loaves in mine so far, the one I just described and then one with parchment, preheated. I actually have a rommertopf because I like the loaf shape it has, but same principle.

I have one recipe I like but won't be able to post if for a while. Swamped with work. I promise I'll get to it maybe Sunday night.
susytwo
13 years ago
What a coincidence. I got one for Christmas too!

My first loaf was a little hard to get out. For the second loaf, I sprinkled some flour and cornmeal on the bottom and the loaf came right out.

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