Step Six: Final Shaping

After the bench rest, it’s time to create the final shape of the dough, which is what the dough will look like once you pull it from the oven. But in addition to simply providing a form for the dough, proper shaping helps to tighten up the dough, which will cause proofing, or the final rise time, and oven spring, or the dough’s initial rapid rise while in the oven, to be that much more effective.

Although there are numerous shapes that encompass all of the breads of the world, there are four that will impart to you enough knowledge to make the vast majority of bread. They are the boule (round), batard (oblong), baguette (long and thin), and rectangular loaf (for a pan).