From what I have read, the biggest benefit of using a baking stone is a crustier loaf, which is due to the dry and porous surface of the stone. If you slide your dough onto the stone with parchment paper, wouldn't you negate the benefits of using the stone, since the PP would seal in moisture and shield the dough from the dry stone surface?
BH
For those casual bakers like myself who have a new sack of half-sheet parchment papers from King Arthur Flour (or any other source with a similar package), I found a place to store my new papers in the pantry without fear of them falling through the slots between the wire shelf units or getting wrinkled or dogeared. I simply used flat head thumbtacks (not push pins) on the inside of the bag to stick them to the wall as shown above. VOILA! Carefree storage.
Hey everybody, didn't know if you all knew this, but I just learned about it yesterday. Sam's Club has parchment paper in a box. 1,000 sheets for about $36!!! Great deal. I didn't get the exact size but it fits their baking sheets which are a bit bigger than a home cookie sheet.
I don't want to spend money on parchment paper, plastic wrap, plastic bags, and tin foil, only to throw them away after one use. It's a matter of frugality + wanting to be environmentally responsible.
so i tired using parchment paper for 3 loaves... i dont see a difference between using it and not using it. My loafs came out very flat, no more than an inch high. I STILL have the EXACT same problem as i always have. No oven spring. I dont over proof, i let it rise the full time and i proof in baskets! Here is a pic of a loaf that turned out crappy.
Bread Bottoms What do they tell us? Lots of information there yet we tend not to show them. Yet we flip over a loaf as soon as we have it in our hands, many times before it lands on the cooling rack. Some bottoms we don't see, others we do. Dark, they speak of a hot oven; pale, a cooler one. The hallmark of an English muffin > two bottoms. They also leave clues as to what surface the loaf was baked.
In a discussion on evidence of the use of baking parchment, the subject of wrinkles came up.
I posted this tutorail on another food site before they banned me from the site (no sense of humor...their loss. LOL), so rather than give the link to that site I figured some of the newer artisan bakers could benefit from this tutorial, especially if they are having difficulty working with wet dough. Hopefully many will benefit from the dialog and the pictures.
