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Loaf Baked in Cloche

Here’s today’s sourdough loaf baked in my poor-man’s cloche. I’m going to say no more. The picture says it all.

Posted by Melanie Rimmer at 11:58 AM 5 comments Links to this post

Labels: baking, cultures, self sufficiency

Poor Man’s Cloche

I’m becoming obsessed with baking sourdough bread. I’ve been avidly reading all the information and tips I can find on the internet. One tip which really appealled to me is baking under a cloche.

You can buy a baking cloche for about $50. I can’t find a UK supplier, so if I wanted one I’d have to pay international shipping. I imagine it would work out pretty expensive.

Or you can go to your garden centre, buy a 10” plant pot and base, a big nut, a few bolts and washers, and make your own “poor man’s cloche”. Mine came to less than £10 all told, especially since I got a 10% discount for showing my allotment membership card. The arrangement with the bolt and washers has two purposes - one is to make a sort of handle, helpful for handling oven-hot earthenware. The other purpose is to close the hole at the bottom (top) of the pot, to create a sealed environment. It becomes an oven-within-an-oven (although it can also be used for baking bread on an open fire or barbecue - can’t wait to try that).

I gave my poor man’s cloche a bit of a clean and then put it in a low oven. I turned the oven up little by little to gradually drive out any residual moisture from the pot. This process took about 3 hours. Then I let it cool slowly, and it was ready for its first use. I’ll bake my sourdough boule in it today. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Posted by Melanie Rimmer at