Last year I bought coiled cane bannetons while I was working my way through Nancy Silverton’s The Breads of La Brea Bakery.  I found that, depsite using a fair amount of flour to coat the basket , I had a lot difficulty with the dough sticking to the banneton. 

Is there some trick to this or do the bannetons really need to be heavily floured?

In the BB’s equipment section, Rose mentions using bannetons but I’m not sure which recipes to use them with?  Can any free-form round loaf be proofed in a round banneton instead?

I would love to use these baskets more…they produce such an attractive design.

Thanks in advance for your help

I think Rose uses them only where necessary—doughs that have a high enough hydration that the bread wouldn’t hold its shape well without the banneton—but I don’t see why you couldn’t use them for any other bread.  Keep in mind that using a banneton does dry the dough somewhat, so if the dough is already on the dry side to begin with, it may not be desirable.  Use rice flour, and the dough will not stick—I have been using a blend of half rice flour recently and that seems to work just as well too.

I never considered rice flour.  Glad to know there’s an alternative.

Thanks, Matthew!

Rice flour does the trick.  I also give a light spray of oil so the rice flour has something to stick to.

Happy Baking.

Andrea - 23 March 2008 05:28 AM

I also give a light spray of oil so the rice flour has something to stick to.

Hi Andrea,

Giving the flour something to stick to makes sense but do you then run into a problem with oily bannetons?  I’d be concerned with the oil absorbing into the cane, becoming rancid, and eventually ruining the banneton.

The humidity where I live is so extreme I have to throughly clean and dry the banneton between bakes anyway.  (80-90% humidity and 89F for 8 months a year).  After a good scrub with a dish brush I air dry and then leave in a very low oven.  I omitted the oven time and got some mildew on the outside of the banneton during our wet season.