August 30, 2014 - 7:16am
dutch oven vs la cloche
I love baking in Dutch ovens. But when I make breads in a different shape... I have a rectangular La Cloche that I use for batards, even though it's a bit narrow. But today I made a boule and a batard, both about 500 kg. One cooked in the a small le Creuset and the other in the rectangular clay baker. They both are nice, but the boule is shiny and dark gold, and the batard is lighter and duller in color. Why is that? The bread cooked in the LC is more attractive, and both open up better when they are cooked inside a vessel than in the oven -- no matter what steam-generating machinations I try.
Ideas?
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Well from what I hear, clay absorbs moisture whilst baking and releases it slowly throughout the bake. This wouldn't happen in cast iron, so perhaps the dough was exposed to more steam at the initial phase of baking which caused the difference in appearance?
I am lucky enough to have a Romertoph (traditional terra cotta clay), a La Cloche and my everyday Lodge cast iron. Now that I have been baking for a year or so I have learned that they all three bake very differently but all do the job well. My Romertoph gives the palest crust. It needs time without the top on, but I think it is the moistest. My LC can remain with the cover the whole time but will be paler than the cast iron. Overall my favorite is the cast iron because you get the shiniest, most attractive and crunchiest crust, and usually the best oven spring. And I do nothing - put it in the oven and leave it there. Sometimes I drop the temp after ten minutes or so depending on the loaf.
I think the initial onslaught of steam from putting a room temperature loaf in to a 500 degree+, black cast iron provides an injection of steam that neither of the other two can match. The LC is probably as effective but doesn't have the browning ability of black cast iron, while the Romertoph always needs encouragement and fiddling around with top off and adjusting oven temps to get a nice crust. However when making something like apricot almond that may well be the desired baking vessel.
Like you I have tried other steam producing techniques. I think the best results for steam when baking on a stone have been from a chain coiled in a cast iron skillet. That also has been the least fussy to my way of thinking.
And that's my experience - limited as it is.
Happy baking!
Thanks for your careful, considered reply. I would think the Romertoph is quite like the La Cloche -- unglazed clay. "Pale" is a perfect description of how my bread comes out of La Cloche. I routinely keep a large cast iron skillet on the bottom of the oven, filled with non-anodyzed nuts and bolts into which I put ice cubes or boiling water when I am baking outside of a dutch oven, like for baguettes. But the scores never open as well as my boules from the dutch oven. As for cooking, I always start with the lid on and then brown loaves with it off-- generally equal amounts of time. I also recently tried Ken Forkish's suggestion to almost burn the bread and liked the results.
I think your idea of a chain in the skillet sounds indeed less messy than my now thoroughly rusted hardware, which was suggested by the folks at San Francisco Baking Institute for their home bakers.
Still questing.
Try a handheld steamer and an upside-down steam pan with a hole drilled in it. Best steaming method I've found, and I've tried a lot.
Sirrith, do you mean those gizmos you use to take wrinkles out of clothes? How do you get it in the oven?
We're building a new home in less than a year and I'm hoping for a couple of Kitchen Aid steam injection ovens. But until then, I'm looking for whatever works.
Not the clothes ones, this is the one I use:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hoover-SteamJet-Express-Handheld-Cleaner/dp/B00DY6U516/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409805623&sr=8-1&keywords=handheld+steamer+hoover