Proofing Bowls for Sourdough Bread

When the pandemic hit in mid March I jumped on the sourdough bandwagon. We never have had close access to good bread anyway, so I figured I would make it myself to minimize shopping while eating well. My friend John had been making great bread for years, and I asked him for a starter. Sourcing flour in the months of March and April was just about as impossible as TP, but I managed to find some bread flour.

At first I used kitchen bowls lined with a flour rubbed towel for proofing the dough, which just means you let it sit in there for a few hours, usually in the fridge, to rise and settle a bit more. It soon occurred to me that bisque clay might make a good proofing bowl. Bisque clay has been fired once, and is porous enough to absorb water so that flour will stick to it. The Romans and other ancient civilizations had a tradition of using clay for cooking and baking, what worked for them still works today!

I made proofing bowls in two sizes: 9” diameter and 8” diameter. They are made from my nice red clay and fire a pretty orange color at the lower bisque temp. The 9” ones are my go to bowls. Here’s what I learned about using them:

bread proofing bowls from Crockett Pottery

Soak down the bowls with water, and rub generously with flour. It will stick to the damp surface. You can also sprinkle seeds on the bottom of the bowl such as sesame, fennel, or granulated dry garlic!

I also liberally sprinkle the top of the dough with flour before inverting it into the proofing bowl. This now gets covered and sits in the fridge overnight to develop the flavor.

sourdough in proofing bowl before inversion

In the morning I preheat the oven with my Dutch ovens inside. I bake the bread inside the dutch ovens which keeps it moist. The parchment paper enables me to flip the bowl over, the dough drops out and onto the parchment paper which I then lift into the Dutch oven.

raw dough flipped out from the proofing bowl

Here is the dough just removed from the proofing bowl with parchment paper under, ready to lift into the hot Dutch oven. You can see all the flour and a mixture of seeds I added inside the bowl and on top of the dough.