Two-Phase Baking

I use the two-phase baking technique developed by Jim Lahey, owner of Sullivan Street Bakery. Briefly:

• Score the dough so that it can expand while baking.
  
• Phase 1: Start to bake the dough in a covered, heated aluminum pot to approximate conditions in a professional bakery oven.
  

  The heated pot helps maintain the temperature of the air around the dough; its cover traps in steam that escapes from the dough and the resulting moisture allows the bread to rise fully without hardening the crust prematurely.

• Phase 2: Finish baking in the uncovered pot to allow the golden crust to form after the bread has risen.
  

The challenge with this process is getting the scored dough into the heated pot quickly and so that the pot doesn’t lose much heat before I return it to the oven. The technique I’ve developed is to invert the dough (scored side down) on the upside-down lid of an auxiliary pot that I can use to flip the dough (scored side up), into the heated pot for baking.