Double Chocolate Sourdough Bread

Shaping the Dough

The next morning lightly flour your work surface and scrape the dough out of the bowl with a dough scraper or rubber spatula. Shape the dough using the envelope fold, folding the bottom half of the dough up to the middle, pressing lightly to hold. Fold the top half of the dough down to the middle. Lastly, fold each side to the middle.

Turn the dough over so that the seams are facing down, and with your hands cupping the farthest side of the loaf, drag the dough towards you while gently pushing the bottom of the loaf under creating tension as the dough slightly sticks to the counter. You may find that the dough slides from the floured surface. Brush away some of the flour or shape the dough on a clean work surface.

If you have a banneton basket, use a bench scraper to lift the dough into the banneton with the seam facing upwards because when you flip the dough out then the seam will be facing down.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a banneton, just lift the dough onto a piece of parchment paper with the seam facing down, and then lift the parchment paper into a bowl.


SECOND RISE