How to Shape Bread Loaves With or Without a Bread Pan
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This post covers exactly how to shape bread loaves with or without a bread pan. This technique will apply to sandwich bread, French bread, etc. If you need a tutorial for shaping hamburger buns, rolls and smaller types of bread you can check out this post.
Y’all, bread shaping does not have to be difficult! It also does not need to be perfect. Although, if perfection is your thing then you do you! After following this tutorial, you will know exactly how to shape your bread loaves in a quick and easy way.
Homemade bread is possible for even the most inexperienced bakers. It’s one of my passions to help people realize their full baking potential and get from-scratch foods on the table for their family and friends. This bread shaping tutorial will also include lots of pictures so you will see exactly how to do each step.
Follow along with me and let’s get to baking!
What You'll Need:
- Bread dough
- Rolling pin (paid link)
- Flour
Steps:
- Punch down your dough and place it on a clean, floured surface.
- Next, cut the dough into two equal parts.
- Then, take one piece of dough, and using your rolling pin roll out the dough into a rough rectangle shape with about 1/4″ thickness.
- Starting with one of the long ends of the dough, roll it up into a log shape.
- Next, pinch each end of the dough.
- Then, tuck the pinched dough ends underneath the dough log.
- The dough can then be placed on a prepared baking sheet or into a bread baking pan for an additional rise and then the baking process.
- Punch down your dough and place it on a clean, floured surface.
If you place your dough in a bread baking pan to make sandwich bread, your result should look something like this… 
If you are placing your dough on a baking sheet to make something like French bread, your result will look more like this… 
I absolutely meant it when I said this would be easy! Also, you can see my shaped dough is absolutely not perfect. The rising process can be very forgiving and cover up the small imperfections you may have during the shaping process.
Notes:
- If at any point, the dough is sticking to your fingers or the floured surface a lot, just add a couple tablespoons of flour to your dough until it is workable. I personally like to keep my doughs pretty wet because it generally leads to a more moist end result. I know… I said “moist”! Uhhh!
- If you find it’s difficult to roll out your dough, let it rest for 10-20 minutes and then try again.
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