Make this beautiful design on your homemade bread

I’m going to show you how to make this beautiful design on your homemade bread. I’ll give you the recipe I use to make it first, only 3 Ingredients. No kneading and you bake it in your dutch oven. I use this Lodge Dutch Oven, (mine is blue) but it is my absolute favorite thing to cook and bake with. I’ve had my dutch oven for 10 years now and it will probably last me forever, I Love it!

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It’s a funny thing how everyone started baking bread when the pandemic first started. I was lucky enough to grab a 25lb bag of flour and a jar of yeast before everything sold out and you couldn’t find yeast. I eventually learned how to grow my own sourdough so I didn’t need yeast but we’ll save that for another post. Yes, I was one of those people madly making bread. I did make some loaf bread, below is a picture of one of my loaves of bread. It’s gorgeous and delicious but also a lot more labor-intensive with the rising and shaping. It also used more ingredients than the boule bread, don’t get me wrong it’s not impossible but the boule bread is the easiest.

What is a Boule?

The word Boule literally means a round loaf of bread, it became my favorite because I could make it with my eyes closed and it was extremely budget-friendly. I figured out I could make it for less than $.40 a loaf. Here is the link to my article with the recipe and how I broke it down to $ .40 a loaf. Simple Three Ingredient No Knead Dutch Oven Bread. I don’t like spending a fortune on ingredients. The fact that I could make this with only 3 ingredients and it cost less than 40 cents to make, made it my new best friend. It looked like this, not beautiful but it was delicious and we ate tons of it.

Here’s what you need:

I had lots of time on my hands and I started watching rustic bread-making tutorials. They made the most beautiful designs by carving into the raw dough with a razor blade. When it baked it left the most gorgeous designs in the loaves of bread. You saw my little lump of bread above, it is looking a little sad. I researched and I knew I didn’t have the talent to carve designs freehand with a razor blade. However, I could use a proofing bowl/basket to make this beautiful design on my homemade bread. This is the proofing bowl set that I bought on Amazon 9″ Bread Proofing Basket/Bowls w Scraper and Bread Lame. A bread lame is a razor you can use to make cuts into the dough.

A proofing basket/bowl is usually round but can be other shapes and made out of rattan, a type of wood. You use it for the proofing process, while the dough increases in size it also takes on the shape of whatever it is in. Proofing bowls have these rounded edges that press into the dough as it’s rising and leaves you with a gorgeous design. Don’t ever bake your bread in a proofing bowl/basket, it would burn up and possibly cause a fire.

I would recommend a set with accessories:

This is the exact set I bought. It came with 2 bowls which are great, I use the scraper a lot to scrape the dough onto a floured surface. You don’t ever bake in the proofing bowl, it’s made of rattan so it would probably burn up. You don’t even have to wash them just shake out the flour and they are good to go for next time. Here are my proofing bowls, you can see that one is very heavily used.

If you are following my recipe 3 Ingredient No Knead Dutch Oven Bread after the first rise you use your hands to make kind of a ball with a flat bottom. Put the round side face down into the proofing basket and let it rise for another hour.

The best part is when it’s done proofing and you flip it over onto parchment paper. Look how gorgeous the design is and it’s not even baked yet.

Now you would use the bread lame (razor) and make a slash on each side to allow steam to escape while baking. Here is the recipe again if you need it. 3 Ingredient No Knead Dutch Oven Bread. The very best part is the finished product.

They are really inexpensive for what you get:

It’s gorgeous and perfectly baked, you can see the swirled design from the proofing basket . Then the 2 slashes I made in the dough on the sides to allow steam to escape. I think it is beautiful and when you give a boule as a gift to a friend or neighbor they are just in awe. Like it had to have been the most complicated process ever but it wasn’t. It was just my simple 3 Ingredient bread recipe and a proofing basket. I really wanted to share how easy it is to use a proofing basket, I love mine. You are not limited to round, there are other shapes that I would like to buy. Amazon has quite a variety of shapes and sizes, these are some of the other shapes and varieties, some come with a ton of accessories as well.

If you want to up your bread game just a little I would try one of the proofing baskets, they aren’t that expensive. Most of them you get 2 so you could share with a friend who is also on the bread baking bandwagon. I would for sure get the oval to try next time, I absolutely love mine!

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Make this Beautiful Design on your Homemade Bread

What is a Boule?

Here’s what you need:

I would recommend a set with accessories:

They are really inexpensive for what you get:

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