Bread

Starter refresh stage, during which you take your existing starter, and mix it with 40% water / 60% flour

You then leave the starter to raise for 1h30.
Doing a double rise is even better, as you end up with a stronger starter.

After this time, the starter should have roughly double size, and is now ready to be used

Put all your ingredients in your mixer bowl: first the starter, then water, followed by flour, salt and sugar. 

I use this tool to mix the dough

Mix it at speed 1 or 1.5 for 20 minutes

After 20 minutes, the dough is ready to raise for the first time. It is still quite sticky and that's expected. Having a well hydrated dough (so a sticky one) is key for it to raise.

Pour the dough on a floured surface, stretch it then fold it in two. Do it 3 or 4 times until the dough starts to resist. This step will put some air in the dough and help it raising.

Put the dough in a bowl (in French we call that a "cul de poule", so literally a hen's anus.

Then put a damp towel on it, and leave it for 1h30 in the oven that you'll heat at 190F for 1 minutes. The goal is to shortly heat the oven and then leave the dough to raise in that warm atmosphere. You can also leave it to raise outside, but doing it in the oven is far more reliable and help getting the same result regardless of the temperature in the room.

After 1h30, the dough has started to raise, and look a bit less sticky.
You'll re-humidify the towel if it's too dry, and then move the bowl to the fridge for 8 to 12 hours (I usually leave it there during the night).
In the fridge, it will slowly raise and develop flavor. If you keep it outside, it will raise too fast and you won't get good results.

The next morning, when you take the dough from the fridge, it will have probably gained 20 to 30% in size.

Transfer the dough to a floured surface, put some flour on the sides so it won't stick.

And finally transfer it to a cake pan or whatever has the size and shape that you prefer (you can use a dutch oven too). I put some olive oil at the bottom and on the sides of the cake pan with a small kitchen brush, making the bread way easier to remove once baked.

Put it back in the oven for an additional 1h30 under a damp towel, with again a 2 minutes pre-heating at 190F, to raise to the final stage.

Remove the dough (well the future bread at this stage) from the oven, and pre-heat at 460F (depending on your oven, might take 15 minutes).

Once the oven is hot, do a couple deep cuts on the dough, and then pour 1/4th of a gallon of water in the baking sheet (see the picture above, I put a backing sheet below the bread while baking it). The water will evaporate and better conduct the heat.

Put the bread in the oven for 30 minutes. It will quickly raise.

After these 30 minutes, open the door and leave the remaining humidity go out, then close the door and let it bake for another 5 minutes.

Those last 5 minutes in a dry atmosphere will give the crust its golden aspect

Your bread should now be ready ! Leave it too cool down for 5 minutes and remove it from the pan.

Enjoy !