Hi Krista, there is another option for baking in your Dutch oven, which allows you to put the dough and pot together into a preheated oven. This should not harm your pot and may give you better results. For this method of baking, I would recommend removing the lid of the pot after 25 minutes of baking, and then continue baking until the bread is done. I'm not sure whether the cookie sheet is really helping your baking, so you might want to consider experimenting with baking without it. One more note: if you let the dough rise in the pot before baking, I'd recommend lining the pot with greased parchment paper. This will help prevent the dough from sticking to the pot, which is a little more likely to happen when you allow the shaped rise to occur in the pot. 

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