Oven spring is caused by the air pockets in the dough expanding from the heat. (Dough rises from gasses released from the yeast.)
After the shaping and final rise, often times there is a light, dry "skin" over the dough. By slashing a dough before it goes into the oven, you break this skin, and the bread is able to expand. If the loaf is a "fancy loaf" and you can't slash it without ruining the appearance (like a braided loaf), try to keep the loaf from drying out with a light mist of cooking spray after shaping and before the final rise.
Perhaps the bread is cooking too quickly when it hits the heat of the oven, essentially cooking a crust before the air pockets get heated enough to expand? Baking in a moist environment should help with that. Place an empty, sturdy pan (I use a cast iron skillet) on the bottom rack of the oven (or directly on the floor of the oven) before preheating. When you place the bread in the oven, pour about 1 cup of very hot water into the empty pan. This will create a bunch of steam, and help prevent the bread from crusting before it gets its "spring."
If you have a pizza/baking stone, use it. Having a hot surface to set your pans on helps with the rise. Think about it... you open the oven door, and out goes a lot of the heat... even though the walls of the oven are retaining the heat, it will take a little while before that heat reaches the bread. Setting the pan on the stone will give you that instant heat on the bottom, causing dough to rise from the bottom up, rather than just getting a small rise from the top area.
If you don't have a stone, invert a heavy baking sheet, cast iron griddle, or something similar, and heat that up in the oven the same as you would for a baking stone. Invert the sheet pan so it's easier to slide your bread pans on and off the hot pan without having to deal with a small edge.
If you haven't got equipment to do the other options listed above, you can try the "cold oven method." Just put the loaf into a cold oven, and set the temperature. Don't preheat. The gradual heat from the bottom of the oven as it preheats will give you some of that "oven spring."
I use a baking stone and steam, but I have had great success with using an inverted aluminum sheet pan with steam before I got the stone... and before I learned that trick, I used the simple cold oven method (no steam as the oven is cold!).
The flavor you want is from the high heat of the clay oven (around 900F, much like a wood-fired pizza oven). Probably nothing you can do to truly replicate it at home, but here are some things to try:
- Use a pizza stone in the oven, and turn the oven to MAX, as hot as it will go (above 500F). Let it preheat for 45 min at least to get the stone to full heat. Put the dough right on the stone (either by hand - risky but traditional, or with a pizza peel or upside down sheet pan covered in corn meal). The naan will cook much quicker, maybe 3-5 minutes at most. If you can get the oven hot enough, you'll get a little of the "char" that is part of the flavor.
- After mixing the ingredients, let the dough rest overnight in the fridge. The next day, pull it out, let it warm to room temp and resume the proofing process. That will let more sugars be created from enzymes converting starch to sugar, and will slightly improve browning (part of the flavor you are looking for).
Of course, if you want to get fun, you could look into one of the many tutorials on building a wood-fired oven in your yard. Lots of great baking to be had there, including a more traditional naan bread. For more tips, read up on all the things people do to their home ovens to bake better pizza - they will all apply to clay oven baking as well. Things like hearth inserts, faking out the "cleaning cycle" and other tips are common.
Based on comments and some more thinking, my first recommendation would be a grill - charcoal if you have it, gas if you don't. The procedure would be similar to making grilled pizza (well described in Peter Reinhart's "American Pie"). Using a charcoal grill with hardwood charcoal, a dough that is stiff enough to not immediately slide through the grate on your grill (may mean slightly less water in your dough), and making sure to brush the surface of the dough with oil or ghee before flopping down on the grill, you could probably get even closer to the clay oven. It still isn't the same thing, but you might get more of the smoky charred flavors you seek.
Best Answer
You have only 62% hydration for a dough with lots of protein, and then you put it for whole 14 minutes in the mixer.
You must be aware that gluten is a strong elastic mesh before it is baked. When you pull at it, it pulls back. Similarly, when the steam and other gases in the bread try to expand in the hot oven, the gluten keeps them from expanding too much. It is like pumping up a bicycle tire - the harder the tire rubber, the less it expands, even if you pump lots of air into it.
You must be aware that 1) French bread recipes at 60% hydration are meant for AP flour at ca. 10% gluten, not bread flour at 13% gluten (the flour variety for bread flour is not common in Europe), and 2) 15 minutes of kneading is typical for hand kneading, not for machine kneading. The combination of low hydration, high gluten flour and long machine kneading will give you a very strong gluten which will be quite resistant to expansion during rising.
If you want to have softer, larger loaves, you should work with more hydration. I frequently use 70% even with AP flour, it is still quite easy to work with with a good technique. You can also consider less kneading and/or using a softer flour.
If you want a stiffer, denser bread, you cannot get more rise. It is normal for these recipes to stay less risen. In this case, keep everything as it is, and eat the bread the way it is now - I see nothing especially wrong with it.