Sunday Notes: The Bench Scraper Does the Shaping

The dough was 82% hydration and it wanted to stay a puddle. I kept fighting it with wet hands and each pull ripped a little more surface tension away.

The trick — from a two-minute Reddit clip that has probably shaped more good loaves than any book — is to keep the dough dry and let the bench scraper do the work. Slide it under the far edge, drag toward you, rotate the ball 90°, repeat. Your hands only rest, they don't pull.

The dough tightens up in about six passes. It looks like magic and takes a week to learn.