Hi Maggie, here is the recipe. There was also a link to a video somewhere... From Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007). Copyright 2007 by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. Serves 4 Note: This recipe must be prepared in advance. 1-1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (about 1-1/2 packets) 1-1/2 tablespoons kosher salt 6-1/2 cups unbleached flour, plus extra for dusting dough Cornmeal In a large plastic resealable container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm (about 100 degrees) water. Using a large spoon, stir in flour, mixing until mixture is uniformly moist with no dry patches. Do not knead. Dough will be wet and loose enough to conform to shape of plastic container. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature, until dough begins to flatten on top or collapse, at least 2 hours and up to 5 hours. (At this point, dough can be refrigerated up to 2 weeks; refrigerated dough is easier to work with than room-temperature dough, so the authors recommend that first-time bakers refrigerate dough overnight or at least 3 hours.) When ready to bake, sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza peel. Place a broiler pan on bottom rack of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and repeat oven to 450 degrees, preheating baking stone for at least 20 minutes. Sprinkle a little flour on dough and on your hands. Pull dough up and, using a serrated knife, cut off a grapefruit-size piece (about 1 pound). Working for 30 to 60 seconds (and adding flour as needed to prevent dough from sticking to hands; most dusting flour will fall off, it's not intended to be incorporated into dough), turn dough in hands, gently stretching surface of dough, rotating ball a quarter-turn as you go, creating a rounded top and a bunched bottom. Place shaped dough on prepared pizza peel and let rest, uncovered, for 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it in lidded container. (Even one day's storage improves flavor and texture of bread. Dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in airtight containers and defrosted overnight in refrigerator prior to baking day.) Dust dough with flour. Using a serrated knife, slash top of dough in three parallel, ¼-inch deep cuts (or in a tic-tac-toe pattern). Slide dough onto preheated baking stone. Pour 1 cup hot tap water into broiler pan and quickly close oven door to trap steam. Bake until crust is well-browned and firm to the touch, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven to a wire rack and cool completely.

Tammy, some very wet doughs, like that Italian, WILL spread when rising, I never get the shaping well enough to keep it from turning into a pancake. I've tried shaping the loaf on a towel with the edges pulled up to keep it from running, but I can't get it off the cloth without deflating the dough. I know there are canvas cloths for that purpose too. If I have to do something more than twice, I run out of patience with it and it's as likely to go into the garbage as it is into the oven. Since I have absolutely no patience when it comes to messing around with it any more, I have reverted to baking in a long pan shaped like a "u", with no ends (I hope that made sense). It makes a long crusty baguette type loaf and that's good enough for me. Hopefully you are more patient than I am, my last batch I gave up on, flattened out and made foccacia and it was darned good. (grin) Yeah, I know, if I messed with it long enough and tried enough times, it would work. I just don't care enough, so I toss it in that pan instead of going back and reading Ann T's excellent pictorial one more time. Annie

If cloudswift is correct in that you want to shape a very wet dough, that can also be done with a couche, a piece of canvas folded to hold the dough in shape or even my cheap and low tech version of parchment paper, folded to shape and held (if necessary) by jars and cans from the pantry. A Banneton is basically a bowl, you can line it with linen tea towels or parchment too. As cloudswift mentioned, brotforms and similar baskets often are used to make a specific pattern on loaves, something I care little or nothing about, so I don't bother. I looked for pictures of my cobbled up rising system and couldn't find them, I must have deleted them off photobucket. I do know Ann T uses a couche sometimes and she may have a tutorial. At any rate, if you are going to make that specific kind of bread often, you may want to spring for a specific single purpose utensil to use for that. I do find it hard to successfully remove the dough from such devices without knocking down my dough,though, probably because I'm just completely clumsy. No matter what you are doing, there's always a gadget or utensil availabe for any purpose and they are usually expensive and unwieldly to store, for some reason. (sigh) It keeps me from buying many kitchen toys, which is probably a good thing and makes me use my inventive nature to come up with a solution, LOL.\ So I stick with my original answer which is no, you don't NEED one, but if you want one, I think you should go for it. We won't tell anyone else you don't need it! Annie

Deborah, how long are you letting the bread rise for the 1st and 2nd rise? There are many No-knead bread recipes and my recipe suggests letting the dough rise for at least 18 hours for the first rise and 2-3 for the 2nd. You can let the bread rise longer on the 2nd rise as long as you have it lightly covered with plastic wrap so it does not dry out. What size pot are you using to bake it? My No-knead sd bread does not rise like my white bread does. I usually get about a 4" loaf. I did make some No-knead sd English Muffins and they were excellent and I'm making more on Sunday! Michelle