bannetons or brotform source

Well, that depends on what you mean by "inexpensive" and what you mean by "brotforms" or "bannetons."

If you want authentic, traditional French willow and linen bannetons, they are all obscenely expensive as far as I know.

If, however, you care to take the time, you can buy some quality linen at an art supply store (yep, it's the stuff they paint on) and line some cheap wicker baskets. The bread won't know the difference, and I won't tell...

Regarding brotforms, much the same thing applies. The "real" ones are rather costly (though not in the breathtaking league of the French stuff) but there are very inexpensive alternatives made of wicker that will do much the same thing.

In summary, if you want to save on the cost, stay away from cooking or baking suppliers and head for places that sell inexpensive wicker goods.

All the best,

If you do a dogpile or google search, you will see that brotforms cost between about $28 to $40, depending on size and what they're made of. The French willow ones are about $33 to $40 depending on size. The cane ones are cheaper for same size. I doubt your bread would know the difference. They're not cheap but are long lasting and do make rustic breads look good.

Howdy,

Might you provide me a link to those...?

Thanks,

I got mine from tmb baking

They also have some plastic bannetons and brotformen. Another source, if you are in a largish city is Cost + Import House. They don't sell on-line, their web site is just to give you the feel of the stores. But, they have lined bannetons for about $5.00 each. Made in China. Not NSF approved. But very serviceable. Just don't machine dry the liners after washing them.

Mike

You might have a look here. Click on the English language version, then "catalogue." Not sure of the shipping charges to wherever you are, but much better than 30+ dollar or euro a piece:

Hi Lisse,

That is an interesting site...

Also, could you please include in your posts something of the message to which you are responding?

Thanks,

--

Hello Kenneth, Sorry, I didn't realize I was being imprecise. I am reading from the Google groups that shows a tree of exactly who is responding to whom, but where any quoting of prior messages has to be manually cut and pasted, which I don't always remember to do. If I write more, I'll try to be more clear. Thanks,

--Lisse :)

Hi Lisse,

It was not a criticism... It was a request .

You can see that tree when posting, but we can't see the tree when reading.

All the best,

I just did a search for this the other day -- liked what froogle came up with, though I still haven't decided what to get. If the links below are problematic, just go to google and do a search on those terms using "froogle".

Carey

Brotform: