My daughter made me a cloche! First bake/learnings...

Hi, all -

My daughter is into ceramics and made me a cloche for Christmas. We’d talked about a cloche once, so she took a stab at one. I love it. She’s planning another iteration; the handle, while beautiful, isn’t ideal for lifting the dome.  Did a little thinking and planning - made a loaf today, with very little to go on.  

So, this cloche is ceramic (I'm not sure the type of clay, but can ask her).  She wasn't sure on how they're usually made, so she kind of eyeballed dimensions, and glazed inside and out, including the inside of the dome/bell.  Apparently threw the two pieces about a month apart; they fit together perfectly.  As I said, the handle is lovely, but not very practical.  While I'm fine with her optimizing the design, I'm of course using this one.  I ended up getting some high heat grill gloves (thanks, amazon) with good silicone nubbie coverage.  They grip the glaze well.  Just in case, though, I wanted a backup.  I planed down the edge of a 3/16" piece of ash to kind of slip under the edge of the dome and lift it.  This worked, but it would only lift about 1/2", then stop.  I needed something thinner to get under the lip.  Tried every silicone spatula we have.  All too floppy.  Tried a putty knife.  Good, but too rigid to actually get under.  Finally found an old plastic pancake flipper type spatula.  Just the right combination of thin and flexible.

I made my standard dough, though with kind of a mish-mash of flours.  But same size as usual (yeasted, but with 100 g cold 50:50 levain, so 550 g flour, 73% hydration).  Cold proofed overnight.  I/she wasn't sue on maximum temp on this clay, so I tried 450F.  Cloche into cold oven, heated to 450, let stabilize maybe 30 minutes, checked temp of the cloche with an IR gun.  I turned the loaf out onto parchment; easier for me to transfer to the oven, and the parchment is thin enough that I didn't suspect it would impede the dome for sealing in moisture.

Did my usual routine for Dutch oven baking - 30 minutes covered, ~18-20 minutes uncovered, check, add time until darkened enough.  After 30 minutes, took off the dome.

The dough had sprung so much that it lifted the dome about 1/2" off the base.  More spring that I usually get on this.  As such, the scores didn't open at all.  Moving forward, will reduce my loaf size by about 100 g and see where we are.

Continued baking.  Ended up about 26 minutes uncovered, which is about right for 450F.  Didn't darken as much as I'd have liked; I kind of think this is the impact of the dough being pressed against the dome.  Smells wonderful, crust is, well, crusty.  Letting cool, then will be breaking into it.

So, the glaze is fine.  I wouldn't want to bake in raw ceramic.  The dough didn't stick AT ALL to the dome, which I think is a function of hot, and a function of glazed finish.  The ceramics survived the first bake (oh, yeah - I removed the dome during the bake and left in the oven to avoid any thermal shock from setting on anything cold in our 66F kitchen.  After the bake, everything is coming down to room temp in the cooling oven.).  The loaf has more spring than I've ever gotten in cast iron.  And, most importantly, my daughter made it for me.  Awesome.

I won't be dumping my cast iron (or pressed steel roaster) on marketplace, but I'm a convert!

Scott