That’s it, cover again with a tea towel and leave to prove, probably for at least 1.5 hours, maybe up to three depending on room temp and how active your yeast is. If you’ve got a proving setting on your oven or a nice warm airing cupboard wack them in there. As a rough rule of thumb, if you push the dough in with your finger, it will be proved properly when it springs back but leaves an indentation. If it doesn’t spring back much it’s under proved so leave it longer, if the indentation springs back and disappears it’s over proved, get it in the oven quick.
This is after than hour and half approx, you can see that the loaves have risen up and expanded in the basket, now’s time to get em in the oven. So put you oven on hot, really hot, 250 for fan oven or gas 9, or basically as hot as it will go. Now here’s an a fun bit, we’re going to bake in a cast iron casserole pot, because you want to bake the loaf in a sealed chamber, any large oven safe pan will do. The sealed chamber holds in the steam released from the bread, this allows the outer layer to stay damp which in turn allows it to expand more and produces better openings and ears and a lighter crumb.
So put you pot into the oven to heat, then one loaf first, once everything is nice and hot upend the dough into the pot. You can cut the surface with a knife of scissors to help expansion, put on the lid and throw into the oven. Wait 25 minutes.
