Phil, I braided it on the mat, then simply picked it up and put it on a parchment-lined baking sheet; let it rise there, and put pan and bread into the oven to bake. If you want to bake on a stone, braid the loaf and then transfer to parchment; or braid it right on the parchment. When it's ready to bake, use whatever you have (peel, bottom of a baking sheet) to transfer the bread, parchment and all, to the stone. The bread's crust doesn't have to touch the stone directly to get the benefit; that layer of parchment in between won't hurt anything, and it makes it a heck of a lot easier to move the loaf from counter to stone, and stone to cooling rack.
March 27, 2008 at 11:39am