Aside: Using a Cloche

I've mentioned a couple of time that I use a cloche or Romertopf lid frequently in baking. If you are interested, here is a brief description of what I do. If you are unfamiliar with it, a cloche is an unglazed stoneware dish with a bell-shaped lid (as shown in the first picture). Dating back to early Greeks and Romans, traditionally, it was used as a portable oven. Food was placed in the dish to bake, covered, and the embers were placed around the cloche. A cloche can be used for any form of baking, not just breads.

The cloche shown in the picture is a Superstone(r) La Cloche that's I had for years. Typically, the loaf is place in a dry cloche at room temperature and then the cloche is place in a hot oven. However, this is not what I do. Inspired by a demonstration by Lionel Vatinet at the Asheville Bread Festival a couple of years ago, I now pre-soak the lid. That is, I fill it with water and let it sit for 15 minutes or so as the oven, with a pizza stone, preheats. I carefully drain the water from the lid, place the loaf on the pizza stone, and then cover it with the lid and close the oven. (I do not use the bottom of the cloche.) After about 10 or 15 minutes, I carefully remove the lid and allow the loaf to finish baking.

CAUTION! You need to be very careful when removing the lid because a lot of steam and water vapor will be released from under the lid when you remove it. It is very, very easy to get a nasty burn if you aren't careful. Having a handle on the lid is a real convenience!

If you don't have a cloche or if you are working with a longer loaf, you can substitute a Romertopf lid for for the cloche lid. I use the cloche lid for boules and the Romertopf lid for bâtards. When working with the Romertopf lid, however, it is much more difficult to remove the lid from the baking stone safely. I slide the lid slightly to one side so it overhangs the edge of the stone, and I'm very careful to keep something between me and the escaping steam and water vapor.

Why bother? The cloche or Romertopf lid provides a micro-environment with a very large amount of steam. With this approach, I get much better results than I've ever gotten with the other approaches at generating steam, be it a cast iron pan filled with boiling water or ice on the floor of the oven. Indeed, there is no point in bothering with any of these other approaches if you are covering the bread with a cloche or Romertopf lid.

With this approach, you'll get a great oven spring. In fact, you need to be very careful. If you have a large loaf to begin with, it may expand enough so that it sticks to the lid!

Is the soaking really necessary? I don't really know. I've baked a second loaf following a first without resoaking the lid (for fear the hot lid would shatter if I tried to soak it), and it didn't seem to make much difference. I've also replace the lid once with a disposable foil pan when the loaf was clearly too big to fit under either of the lids I own. This is something I have heard about from others and it also seemed to work fine. But I already own both the cloche and the Romertopf so I've stuck with what I know works. But perhaps I play around with alternatives in the future. Stayed tuned.

#4: Transitional Cinnamon Raisin Bread

In The Bread Baker's Apprentice, Peter Reinhart has an extraordinary recipe for Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread that I've been making for several years. This is a wonderful, rich bread that stands on its own, or, that can be used to make an astonishing pain perdu. (I strongly recommend the recipe from America's Test Kitchen.) This bread is one of my all-time favorites.

So, when I bought a copy of Whole Grain Breads, the Transitional Cinnamon Raisin Bread was one of the first recipes I made. I've use this recipe to make both loaves of cinnamon bread and cinnamon rolls.

This is certainly a recipe that you can do variations on. For example, I often add nuts along with the cinnamon sugar prior to rolling up the loaf. An I've been known to augment or replace the raisins with dried cranberries or dried cherries. This time around, I went back and made the basic loaf using half the dough. (This is the bread on the right in the photo.) With the other half of the dough, I made a minor variation (shown on the left). After flattening the dough and dusting with cinnamon sugar, I added walnut before rolling the dough into a loaf. Also, when I took the loaf from the oven, I brushed it with butter and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top, a suggestion from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

This transitional recipe produces a very nice loaf of bread. The dough was shaggy and a bit harder to work with than most. The cooked loaf, while not what I would call dense, was substantial and chewy. The flavor is excellent and is almost as good any cinnamon bread that you are likely to find, whole grain or otherwise. Almost. In this case, Chef Reinhart has set the bar too high with his original recipe. And, compared to the original, this new loaf just doesn't quite measure up.

#3: Transitional Rye Sandwich Bread

This was a surprisingly pleasant loaf. In the past, I've been pretty indifferent toward rye breads.
But since starting the Hamelman Challenge, my attitude has become increasingly negative as I baked more and more, heavier and heavier traditional rye breads.

But this loaf didn't suffer any of the defects I'm coming to associate with rye bread. I found it a very light and pleasant loaf. In fact, it doesn't really seem like a rye bread at all.

For this recipe I followed the directions fairly closely. I used molasses and agave nectar. I included the optional oil but omitted the optional caraway seeds. I did elect to make a fendu rather than a loaf-pan bread or a standard bâtard. Unfortunately, the loaf was a bit to short and wide to yield an attractive fendu, something to remember in the future. And, as is my wont, I baked this under a Romertopf lid rather than use a steam pan.

The loaf had a few minor but unsightly cracks, probably a consequence of the overall shape. But apart from than, this produced a lovely, light bread with a mild flavor. After making this bread, I'm hopeful that Reinhart will change my attitude toward rye breads.

I made the loaf a second time playing with the shape. This time I made a "daisy loaf" as described in Special and Decorative Breads by Biheux et. al. I got the center roll a bit too large but I liked being able to used different seeds. This pulls apart nice with rolls that can be sliced and used as hamburger buns.

#2: Transitional Multigrain Sandwich Bread

The second loaf is a multigrain loaf. This seems to be Reinhart's forte. I pretty much followed the recipe as written using cooked brown rice, flaxseeds, and buttermilk.

This is a fine loaf. I definitely prefer it to the previous loaf. A great recipe!

#1: Transitional Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

The first recipe in the challenge is a transitional loaf, one that uses both white and whole wheat flour rather than all whole wheat to "transition" the baker over to whole wheat. This is a recipe that I've made before, so I was a little sloppy and didn't notice that I needed to cut the oven back when the loaf went in. As a result, I didn't get much oven spring from the loaf and had a much shorter cooking time. It was still a usable loaf but not great.

As a consequence, I went back and made the loaf a second time and got it right this time. Rather than use a loaf pan, I made a free-form loaf using a Romertopf lid like a cloche. Basically, I fill the inverted lid and let it soak while the oven preheats. When I place the loaf on the baking stone, I cover it with the (drained) Romertopf lid for about 15 minutes. Then I carefully remove the lid (it is very easy to get scalded by the steam from under the lid) and finish baking the loaf. With this approach, I don't need to bother with a steam pan and I find I get much better results.

This is an interesting recipe as the soaker and the biga are about the only thing going into the loaf. I used buttermilk which seemed to work well. There were some minor difference in the soaker from one loaf to the next. The first was more liquidy than the second. Still the recipe worked well and the results were fine.