Best Dutch Oven for Sourdough Bread, and for Baking Bread

The Combo Cooker is a 3.2 quart deep pot and a 10.25 inch skillet that fits over it as a lid. For bread, bakers turn it over: the dough goes onto the shallow skillet and the deep pot comes down on top, which gives the same safe loading as the Challenger for a fifth of the price. Lodge makes it in the USA and lists it at 12.85 pounds.

America's Test Kitchen named it the best buy among bread ovens. It made excellent 1 kilogram boules and smaller batards, and ATK liked its compact size, though the single set of handles means placing the pieces with some care.

Off bread duty it is a skillet and a pot for stews and frying, which makes it the easiest bread vessel to justify. Skip it if you want long loaves.

The catch. Round, so long loaves are a tight fit, and the handles are small.

Le Creuset's bread oven pairs a low base with a tall domed lid. The oval version is 11.5 inches long, with a matte black interior enamel that needs no seasoning, raised ridges on the base for even browning, and a three-ring embossing that the maker says removes the need for parchment.

America's Test Kitchen named it the best lightweight bread oven and weighed it at 8 pounds 13.6 ounces, roughly half the Challenger. It baked 1 kilogram batards and 750 gram rounds. ATK noted that the rings on the base print onto the bottom of the loaf, which some bakers like and some do not.

Le Creuset also makes a round bread oven, which ATK found suits larger round loaves and smaller batards. Skip either if you would rather spend the money on a Dutch oven that also cooks dinner.

The catch. The ringed base marks every loaf, and it is a single-purpose pot.

If you will own one heavy pot, a 5.5 quart round Dutch oven bakes bread and does everything else. The Le Creuset is the lightest of the French pots at that size, 11 pounds 3.5 ounces with the lid by America's Test Kitchen's scale, and the listing rates it oven safe to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, so a hot preheat is no trouble.

The drawbacks for bread are the ones every deep pot shares. The dough has to be lowered into hot iron, usually on a sling of parchment, and a round pot bakes only round loaves. The pale interior will stain over time, which affects its looks, not its cooking.

Our guide to the Dutch oven to hand down covers more pots at this size, and Le Creuset vs Staub explains why the lighter Le Creuset is the better bread pot of the two.

The catch. Deep and round: loading takes care, and long loaves will not fit.

Emile Henry makes the cloche in France from Burgundy clay, in its HR ceramic. The maker lists the Modern Bread Cloche at 6.3 pounds and 12.7 by 11.6 by 5.5 inches, says it holds a loaf made with 3.5 to 4 cups of flour, and rates its ceramics to go from the freezer to a 500 degree Fahrenheit oven. It is dishwasher safe and carries a 10 year guarantee against production faults.

The base is flat, so loading is as easy as with the Challenger, and the criss-cross pattern on the platter keeps the loaf from sticking. The listing notes the dome can be turned over and used as a bowl for mixing or proofing.

America's Test Kitchen did not include it in its bread oven testing, so there is no independent comparison. Ceramic holds less heat than cast iron and can crack if knocked or dropped. Skip it if you want the heaviest, most forgiving heat.

The catch. Not independently tested for bread, and ceramic breaks where iron would not.