My wife bought me a Pampered Chef set of stoneware a few weeks ago. I wanted to make some sourdough pumpernickel, so I thought it'd be a great time to try it out as a cloche. This is a dark pumpernickel with raisins, made with rye sourdough starter, molasses, coffee and cocoa powder. Yum!

I made two loaves. One I baked as I usually do, on a stone, spraying water into the oven. The other I baked in a cloche, putting the loaf in with the cloche cold and sticking it in a 450F oven.

Here's just before being slashed:

And here's what they looked like when done (left is baked on the stone, right in the cloche):

The cloche one looks darker, presumably because it stayed moister. The crust was *very* soft when I took the cover off after the bread interior reached 196F. I left it in the oven with the cover off for 5 more minutes, and that seemed to help a lot.  As you can see, they both sprang beautifully in the oven.  The cloche didn't seem to make a difference in that department.

I haven't opened either up yet, so I'll have some more pictures for you tomorrow!

-Joe