I've seen many folks with the combo cookers just drop their loafs directly onto the surface, or even some brave enough to place it into their DO (I am super clumsy and 99% likely to burn myself if I try this). I feel like the parchment paper doesn't actually add much overhead and makes it safer to transfer, but I'm wondering if there's actually any downsides to doing so?
I drop my formed loaf right into the dutch oven. I've tried using paper but it tends to get all bunched up at the edges and deforms my loaf. The only way I've found around that is to cut it to the exact right size and 1, I find that terribly annoying and 2, it doesn't really provide any benefit.
FWIW I do genuinely DROP my loaf. My fingers come nowhere near the metal. Sometimes I screw up and the loaf ends up kind of riding up the side but the oven spring sort of fixes it.
Crumple up your parchment first, then after you drop your dough into the blazing hot dutch oven it is easy to use a wooden spoon to push the parchment against the sides of the dutch oven and away from your dough. Since I've started doing this I haven't had the paper ever deform my bread.
Benny
I like to sprinkle semolina flour in the bottom of my Dutch oven (not a combo cooker -- this is the regular thing) before putting the dough in, and the light coating of semolina adds another flavor. With parchment paper in the bottom, I could not do that. And I don't drop my loaf in. I turn it out of the banneton onto one hand and then quickly move the loaf into the fingers of both hands in a gentle cradling position and carefully move my hands down and inside the Dutch oven. The loaf very slightly sags in the middle as I lower it, but not much, and certainly with no ill effects on the final product.
Your question asked about a reason for not using parchment paper in a Dutch oven, and semolina flour is my answer.
Happy baking -- and stay safe and stay healthy.
Ted
I have the Lodge 3.2 qt combo cooker. There is a long handle on the pot and on the lid. I bought two bannetons to fit it, one for the lid part, and one for the pot part.
I grab the long handle, and invert the lid or pot over the banneton, and flip them over together. Easy.
But I also use corn meal and parchment paper to insulate the dough so the underside does not get too thick a crust.
I lightly oil the pot (or lid) and sprinkle on corn meal.
Then I sprinkle corn meal onthe dough as it sits inthe banneton, and put a round piece of cut-to-size parchment over the dough, then do my invert/flip manuever.
So, counting up from the bottom, there's: cast iron, corn meal, round piece of parchment, more corn meal, then the dough.
--
For where a dutch oven does not have a long handle, or can't cook on the lid, and you have to lower the dough into the pot, parchment can be good, Usually, they crumple up the parchment to make it wrinkled and flexible, and maybe use a spatula/scraper to conform it to the inside shape of the DO, then take it out. Then put dough in the bowl-like parchment, then lower the parchment "bowl" into the DO. Trim excess parchment if you want.
Parchment/silicone paper generally has a heat tolerance of around 400-440F. Even under this temperature range, it tends to get crispy and starts to flake. I generally bake bread around 450F or higher, so I shy away from parchment paper. You could consider proofing your bread in a dutch oven and then put it in (cold) into a hot oven. Many have reported this works really well and you don't need to do a transfer.
I use two strips of paper long enough to allow the loaf to be dropped in safely, and a bit wider than half the width of the banneton. Sprinkle medium cornmeal or polenta on top of the dough when it is in the banneton, invert a board with the paper strips on it overlapping a bit on top of the banneton then invert the whole thing, the loaf shoould drop out, then you can do your scoring etc. and drop it into your Dutch oven or whatever. The paper strips can then be shimmied out sideways from under the loaf as long as the dough is not over-proofed (and coming straight out of the 'fridge helps as well). And they can be re-used several times.