How to Make Bread

Last updated: September 11, 2026

Makes 1 batard

Ingredients

400 g bread flour
300 g water
1 g Fleischmann’s Active Dry yeast
12 g Diamond Crystal kosher salt

Notes

Timing. Decide at what time you’d like to eat the bread and subtract 14 hours. If you want toast at 8am in the morning, for instance, begin at 6pm the night before.

Flour. I used regular King Arthur all-purpose (AP) flour for the first dozen loaves. Then I tried King Arthur bread flour. It could be my imagination, but I think I like it better. It seemed to develop a better structure than the AP flour.

Process

Autolyse

400 g bread flour
330 g water
1 g instant yeast
12 g salt

Mix in a bowl until no dry flour remains. Cover with a towel and rest for 30 minutes. The dough may look like it’s breaking apart. That’s normal. Trust the process. It’ll come together.

Stretch & Fold 1

Leaving the dough in the bowl, pull the left side of the dough and stretch it. Fold it over on top of the dough, covering roughly 2/3rds, as if you were folding a letter.

Repeat with the right side of the dough, then the side farthest from you, then the side nearest. Or, you can do as I do in the video below and just fold over completely, rotating 90˚ between folds. Just goes to show you there’s more than one way to fold dough.

Cover and rest 30 minutes.

Stretch & Fold 2

Repeat the same process as before. The dough should be slightly smoother and stronger. Cover and rest 30 minutes.

Stretch & Fold 3

Repeat the process again. The dough will be even smoother and stronger than before.

We have a choice to make: do we use a banneton (bread basket)?

If you’re not using a banneton, cover the dough and let sit on the countertop for the remainder of the fermentation time. I usually start my dough around 4 or 5pm, so I just let it ferment overnight.

If you are using a banneton, then you’ll pre-shape and shape before fermentation.

Pre-shape

Lightly flour a board or counter. Release the dough from the bowl. You can turn the bowl over and let it fall out, but since I never bother greasing my bowl, I use a bench scraper or my hand to scrape it out.

Repeat the stretch and fold process: stretch the right side up and away from the dough then fold it over, covering roughly 2/3rds of the dough. Then the left side. Then the side farthest from you, then the one nearest.

Turn it over so the seam is down and cover—I use the bowl it fermented in—and rest for 15 minutes.

Final Shape

Fold the side closest to you into the center. Then the side farthest from you.

Turn the roll over, seam side down. Using both hands, pull the roll toward you while sliding your hands underneath. It should stick to the counter as you do this, but that stickiness stretches the surface and creates tension, which will make for a better-shaped loaf. Lift the roll up, and place it farther away from you and repeat 2-3 times.

If you’re using a banneton, transfer the dough to a well-floured banneton seam side up and refrigerate until ready to bake (for me, usually overnight).

If you’re not using a banneton, cover with the bowl, put a large Dutch oven in the oven and preheat at 460˚F, and proof (rest) the dough for 45 minutes or so.

Load and Score

If you’re using a banneton, turn over the dough onto a piece of parchment paper, score the dough about ½ inches deep, and transfer to the hot Dutch oven.

If you’re not using a banneton, score the dough and transfer to the hot Dutch oven.

(To score the dough simply means to make a slice in its surface. I make one slice from end to end, slightly off-center, that bows slightly outward.)

Bake

Bake covered for 15 minutes at 460˚F.

Remove the lid, increase the temperature to 475˚F and bake for another 15 minutes.

Cool

Cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes.