Buying Linen Canvas From San Francisco Baking Institute

Hi, Yippee.

I would say this depends on the size of your oven and how many loaves you will be proofing at one time on the couche.

If you have a standard size home oven, I would imagine you would never be making loaves longer than 14-16 inches, so the 18 inch wide fabric should suffice.

I find that a 1 yard long couche is ideal for 4 baguettes or 3 bâtards.

I proof with the couche right on my tile kitchen counter. If you will be proofing on cookie sheets, the width of these will limit the size couche you can use. If you anticipate proofing on multiple cookie sheets at the same time, you would want the appropriate number of couches.

If my assumptions are incorrect, I imagine you can adjust the conclusions accordingly.

Happy baking!

David

I ordered the 26" and for my uses it was actually too large.  I used it for baguettes and to cover bowls and cambros for proofing.  The 26 is big enough to cover 2 1.5 lb proofing baskets folded over and with alot of space.  That being said one 26 should be enough to cover a cookie sheet very well but if you have multiples I would go with more than one and use them seperately.  Looking back at your post I see you want to use it as a couche, for that the 26' is more than enough to make one cookie sheet full but not cover the loaves once they are folded in.

As someone else said, I proof on my counter, not on a baking sheet. Your couche can do double-duty as a pastry cloth as well for rolling out cookie dough, biscuit dough, or sweet-bun rolls, etc. Unless you have a very specific reason for wishing to proof on the cookie sheets you might as well get as big of a couche as will comfortably fit on your counter.