Had a little experiment last night with two portions of the same dough.
The one of the left is baked with the steam-oven. I just used the standard bread recipe in the oven's settings. The one on the right is baked with a Dutch oven.
Tried to get the variables (like scoring etc.) as consistent as possible. What a different.
Any thoughts? The only thing I can think of is that the Dutch oven wasn't the same temp as the oven, so that stopped the rise of the loaf on the right.
Professional bakers have never used Dutch ovens for a reason.
Well it would be too fussy for multiple loaves, the en cloche baking doesn't scale up well. If I had to make more than 2 at a time no way would I be wrangling a bunch of heavy searing hot pans.
The reality is that you don't need any cloche or whatever. Just add steam straight into the oven.