baking bread in a dutch oven will give you a better crust and better cooling

my fondness for my dutch oven (it's always on the top right, under my favorite hot pad), a recent issue of cook's illustrated (by far the best cooking magazine), and a free box of bread mix combined to become this.

i added shredded cheese and cooked chopped bacon to the mix recipe, and followed the magazine's instructions of preheating the dutch oven along with the oven itself. i transferred the dough into the hot pan in a parchment paper sling, again following the magazine's instructions; baking with the lid on for half an hour and then with the lid off until the crust was browned as you see here.

the best thing about this baking approach is a fabulous crust, better than i'm used to producing. (again, the magazine goes into wonderful detail about the factual reasons for that-- much better than i can do here.)

the second best thing is getting the bread out of the oven and onto a rack to cool-- all you do is lift it, still in its bread sling, onto the cooling rack. (then, of course, remove the paper to allow the bread to cool properly. i took a picture first.)