You need a cloche!

Even though I've been baking bread for a long time, I only recently discovered the cloche.

What is a cloche, you say?

Only the most amazing bread-backing apparatus since the oven!

It looks like this:

It's a cloche!

This unglazed clay pot will give you the best crust you've ever had. I almost didn't believe the hype, but asked for one of these for Christmas (they're awfully pricey, considering they're little more than two oddly shaped flower pots) and I have to say I have not been at all disappointed.

I thought the sourdough bread I've been baking was primo — and it is — but not nearly as primo as sourdough bread baked in a cloche! 

After your initial rise, you sprinkle cornmeal into the bottom and place your dough in it for its final rise. It will look like this:

Ready to be slashed, covered, and baked!

Once it's baked, it will look like this:

Ready to be devoured!

You'll have to experiment a bit, but for the size loaf I have been baking, I bake it at about 450 for 15 minutes, then for 20 minutes at 425, and then I take the cover off and let it brown for the last 8 minutes. It's not always easy to get both the crust and the inside ideal, but with the cloche, it's easy.

I've just started adding one more step. When the oven is good and hot I moisten the dough, sprinkle flour on it and then slash it. I did not do that in the example pictured just above, but it gives the loaf a little more of that artisan look.

No, I haven't received any money from the cloche manufacturer. My rave review is based 100 percent on the perfect loaves of bread I've been making since Christmas. 

Normally I've always gone to a lot of extra trouble to proof in a very moist environment, to wet the dough several times during the beginning of the bake, and to have a pot of boiling water in the oven while baking. I baked on a hot stone, sometimes covering the loaf with an overturned stainless steel bowl. The cloche makes all these steps unnecessary. It provides its own moist micro-environment.

If you are serious about baking the best bread you've ever had in your life, get a cloche. If you have a gift-giving occasion coming up, this is the thing to ask for!

I'm terrified of breaking this thing, as I use it constantly. I'd like a back-up. So if any cloche manufacturers would like to send one along, feel free ....