I have great success using my clay baker or a Dutch oven but when I bake on a stone or open vessel, my loaves are misshapen. Today I’m trying again to make sourdough bread bowls for soup (in my new small bannetons). Can someone help with my misshapen issue?
Some questions to get to the bottom of this – though you maybe already baked yesterday’s bread bowls and I hope they came out good.
Is your Dutch oven small and supporting your dough?
Is your baking stone as hot as the Dutch oven for the preheat?
Have you tried refrigerating the proofing basket to stiffen up the dough before loading it into the oven?
Have you tried lowering the hydration of the dough so your shaping holds up better?
Here’s a shaping article with a boule video – maybe worth watching:
Thanks Melissa! I’ve baked the bread bowls and they turned out quite well, I believe because they’re small (5” bannetons) and didn’t have much room to get ‘wonky’. My success with other bread is, as you said, due to the support my loaves get from the Dutch oven and clay baker. I’ll try to post pictures if I can. Thanks again for posting that shaping video.
I’m glad they came out well!