Baking in Emile Henry cloche

[Karen K]

I’m looking for tips on adapting baking times for cooking In an Emile Henry baking cloche.

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this was just a pizza forum. Please ignore my query.

[JRPizza]

Karen, are you asking about baking with the cloche in a wood fired oven or just general baking in a standard electric? I guess the only difference between those 2 is the literature I see says 500F for a cold cloche so you might want to watch for shock if putting it into an oven hotter than that.
I don't have a cloche but do use a small aluminum dutch oven type pot with a glass lid. I usually get it hot (around 500F) before I drop in my dough ball but tried putting it in cold after seeing online posts like you have. I found I did not get the oven spring from a cold pot like I do from a hot one so that is all I do now.
For what it is worth, I usually have about a 2 pound uncooked round. I heat the pot to 500F (electric oven), drop to 475 when I put in the dough and return the lid. 20 minutes covered and 20 uncovered and I am very happy with the results. Even though I have a WFO I still tend to use the covered pot method for my hearth loaves as with the small batches I bake I have trouble getting enough steam in the big oven to make the bread spring and crust properly.

[deejayoh]

Isn't the cloche basically an upside down dutch oven? I have a similar vessel that I use. I can't imagine what instructions would call for baking bread in it cold. The cloche/dutch oven is meant to simulate going into a hot oven with steam. Starting baking with it cold kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

edit: actually, I looked up the cloche and what they say on their site is to put the base in @400 - which makes sense. The base at least needs to be hot.


Preheat oven to 400F degrees with the Emile Henry Cloche base in the oven.