I use a cloche, which I carried over from the States after a visit to my
family. I find that it does an excellent job, and eliminates the need for a
pan of water in the bottom of the oven. Also, spraying the bread with the
hard water we get in England was doing funny things to my oven.

My wife likes a crust that isn't hard or very chewy; I like a crust with,
er, personality. The cloche gives me a decent compromise.

I've never hhad the courage to try the cold oven baking method describbed in
Elizabeth David's book. Your way sounds interesting.

The only difficulty with the cloche is that there's a limit to how many
loaves I can fit into it.

David T.


On 25/10/03 1:32 am, in article
, "Ed Bechtel"
wrote:

This morning, so as to save time and not overheat the kitchen with the usual 1
hour preheat, I used the cloche. As soon as the oven got to 500F, I put the
loaf in the cold cloche and baked at 475 then 450, then with lid removed at
425
F.

I offer this up because sometimes I wonder if the cloche is treated by the NG
as maybe dangerous or somehow not worthy, but frankly it does an OK job and
can
produce the blistered crust without a lot of boiling water etc.