1

Preheating: Place a large baking sheet upside down in the lower half of the oven. Place a small baking tray directly on the bottom of the oven (depending on the oven design). Preheat the oven with the baking trays for 10-15 minutes at 250 °C convention (230 °C convection) until they are really hot. This is important to ensure that the dough rises properly in the oven.

2

Place bread or buns of any shape on parchment paper and allow to rise. Garnish and/or score shortly before baking. If required, brush with egg wash and allow to dry slightly.

3

Steaming: Place parchment paper and risen dough directly onto the preheated large baking sheet (caution: wear oven mitts, risk of burns). Close the oven immediately. Remove ice cubes from the freezer, place them on the small baking sheet and close the oven again immediately so that as little heat as possible escapes. Bake for approx. 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to approx. 210/190 °C. After approx. 10 minutes of baking, open the oven door briefly to allow the steam to escape from inside the oven and finish baking according to the recipe.

Tips

A moist environment is needed to ensure that yeast-based baked goods have the opportunity to rise properly during the first phase of baking and do not immediately form a crust. We create this environment using ice cubes, which turn to steam faster than water does. Ice cubes are also easy to measure out and can be quickly tossed onto the hot baking sheet.
You can also moisten the inside of the oven with a water spray.
Various oven models have bread baking programs that combine moist and dry heat in ideal combinations. Try baking your bread with these too.
Special containers, e.g. filled with lava stones or screws, are heated and then doused with water when the pastries are placed in the oven, thus creating ideal initial humidity in the oven chamber when the oven is immediately closed again.
It is important that the yeast dough can bake in dry heat for the rest of the baking time so that a nice crust can form. Therefore, the residual moisture is released by opening the oven door several times briefly and it is finished baking in dry heat.

Source:

IG Dinkel, Judith Gmür-Stalder