A brotform is nothing more than a simple reed or wicker basket in the shape of a flattened bee hive. It is dusted heavily with flour (rice flour, according to some) and used as a mold to rise bread dough in. This set of pictures will show the few steps necessary for you to use a brotform and make good bread with it.
The bread is a 60% hydration French bread, made with a two-day old biga to a total weight of 60 ounces / 1.7 KG. There were 2 teaspoons / 10 ml yeast. There were 4 fermentations of 20 minutes each and a 1 hour rise. I used half the dough for the brotform and half for the series on shaping a boule. This is the same dough as in the folding series.
So far, I've posted only the larger pictures for this series.
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Here are the well-floured brotform basket and the floured, shaped dough. |
| The dough is flipped over so the smooth, floured side is down and the rough side is up |
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I dusted the exposed portion of the loaf and covered it with plastic to rise. |
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Here is the fully-risen dough. This dough didn't fill the brotform. |
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Place parchment paper on top of the dough. |
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Place my trusty peel over the parchment paper. |
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Grasp the sides of the peel and the brotform, hold them together tightly and flip quickly. |
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Lift the brotform off the dough and there it is. |
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Slashed the dough. |
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Into the oven. |
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And done. |
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More. Because this dough was so active, it partially obliterated the brotform design. |