2 nights before baking day: assemble the levain.

Add the levain ingredients into a jar large enough to contain the ingredients with extra room for when the levain doubles in size.

Mix thoroughly and place in a warm area of the kitchen to grow overnight.

Make sure that you are using a healthy active starter preferably fed in the morning and ready to feed again.

Prepare and hydrolise the dough:

In a large bowl combine the flours, salt, and water and mix until a consistent texture is achieved and all the flour is incorporated.

Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel and let rest four 30 minutes.

This is the “hydrolysis” step and allows the flour to become hydrated and the proteins start to relax prior to adding the levain.

Using the rubber spatula, fold the dough from the edges of the bowl up and over the added levain.

Continue folding and rotating the bowl until the levain is thoroughly incorporated and the dough is a uniformly shaggy texture.

Cover the bowl with a damp towel and set a timer for 30 minutes.

Stretch and fold:

Repeat this process 4 times with 30 minutes of resting between each set.

Fill a small bowl with dechlorinated water for dipping your fingers in.

Uncover the bowl and using the wetted fingers of one hand, grab one side of the dough and lift it up and fold it towards the other side.

Rotate the bowl 90 degrees and fold the next side up and over the center.

Repeat until you have performed a total of 8 stretch and folds.

Flip the ball of dough over so the seamed side is down.

Re-cover the bowl and don’t forget to set the timer for another 30 minutes.

Bull fermentation:

After the 4th set of stretch and folds, set the covered bowl aside to rise until the dough has doubled in volume, has bubbles on the surface, and wobbles easily when you shake the bowl.

Pre-shaping:

Dust a large cutting board or non-stick work surface with flour.

Using a rubber spatula, gently turn the bowl out of the bowl and onto the work surface.

Using a sharp knife with a wet blade, divide the dough into two equal halves.

For each piece, fold the corners of the dough in towards the center.

Continue this process until you have a relatively round shape.

Flip the seamed side down and leave the dough to rest for twenty minutes.

You can dust a little more flour under it when flipping if it looks like it might stick.

While the dough is resting dust two demibatard bannetons with buckwheat flour.

Buckwheat flour adds a nice touch to the final flavor and is less prone to stick than wheat flour.

Cover the bannetons with a damp towel and place in the fridge for a finishing fermentation of 12 to 16 hours.

Baking day:

Preheat your oven to 225. A thick pizza stone in the oven can help it maintain an even temperature.

Put your baking dish and lid in the oven to preheat as well. I use a ceramic casserole dish that just fits the size of my demibatards.

Cut a piece of parchment paper just larger than the bannetons but leave corners on it to make it easier to get out of the dish after cooking.

Place the paper over the banneton and place a baker’s paddle, cutting board, plate, or whatever else you have for the job over the paper and invert the paddle and the banneton at the same time.

Lift the banneton and off of the dough.

Dust off some of the excess flour with a pastry brush.

Retrieve your preheated cooking vessel from the oven and set the lid aside.

Using a lamé or a sharp knife, cut a curved slash long wise just off-center of the loaf.

Picking up opposite corners of the paper, transfer the loaf into the dish, replace the lid, and put the dish in the oven for 25 minutes.

After 25 minutes:

If you have a pizza stone in the oven, you can take the dish out, remove the bread and the paper, take the paper off and put the bread directly back on the pizza stone and the dish back into the oven next to it

If not using a pizza stone, just take the lid off of the dish.

Either way bake for another 10 minutes.

Repeat the baking procedure with the second loaf.

Important: let your bread cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting into it. The loaf will continue to cook after coming out of the oven. Cutting it too soon lets the heat trapped inside escape and can leave you with a gummy crumb.