Bread shaping techniques and methods
Sam Whitaker · May 7, 2026
For months, my baguettes looked like sad, deflated hot dog buns. I’d follow every step of the process carefully — the autolyse, the folds, the shaping. Then I’d line them up on a floured tea towel, and somehow they’d just……
Sam Whitaker · February 9, 2026
A dry, bitter cold front rolled through my kitchen three years back, right around the six-month mark of my sourdough journey, and it exposed exactly how little I actually understood about shaping. I lifted what should have been a tidy batard out of its proofing basket and watched it ooze sideways into something closer to … Read more
Sam Whitaker · February 8, 2026
No recipe card ever bothers to warn you about this: pick the wrong proofing basket for your dough’s shape, and a gorgeous loaf can turn into a sad puddle before it even sees the oven. I learned this the hard way, on my mother-in-law’s Thanksgiving table, no less. What I’d shaped into a proud, tight … Read more
