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Craft · 02 Oct
· 4 min read
Why we shape every loaf by hand
A machine could do it faster. It would also make a different loaf. On tension, touch and the forty seconds each one takes.
Shaping at 4:50
Every loaf that leaves Fournil has been shaped by someone standing at the bench before five in the morning. It takes about forty seconds a loaf. On a Saturday that is close to six hours of hands in dough.
People ask why we don’t buy a moulder. The honest answer is that we tried one, in 2008, for three weeks. The bread was fine. It was also tighter, more even and a little duller, and the regulars noticed before we said anything.
What the hands feel
A sourdough with 78% water is alive and slack. Shaping is the moment you give it the tension it needs to stand up in the oven. Too little and it spreads; too much and the crumb closes. No two batches feel the same, because the flour, the kitchen and the starter change every day.
You don’t shape the dough you planned. You shape the dough you have.
Lucía Arnaud, head baker
So the bench decides: a little more flour on a humid morning, an extra fold when the starter has been lazy. That is the part a machine can’t do, and the part we would miss.
It’s also why no two of our loaves look quite alike. If yours has a seam slightly to one side, that was somebody’s hand.
— The Fournil bakehouse