#1 - Mise en place (everything in its place)

You measure and place all the ingredients on your table. This assures you that you are not missing any ingredients before you begin. It also makes it much harder to forget something. If it is still on the table, you forgot to add it. 

#2 - Mixing and kneading 

You collect all the ingredients from your recipe and knead them together. Preferably in a bowl. It is the same whether you are kneading by hand or machine.

#3 - Primary Fermentation.

The bread rises. The yeast multiplies. Enzymes, sugars and gluten is extracted from the starches of the flour. And the yeast produces the carbon dioxide that causes the air bubbles. It is the most underrated of the twelve stages. The second fermentation, which comes after shaping, in step 10 is the most important step for making a bread that rises above the norm. The first fermentation is the one which determines the taste of the bread.

#4 - De-gassing (Punching down) 

The name is a bit misleading. We don't want to press the bubbles out of the bread. We want to re-distribute them more evenly, and gently fold them into the dough, so they can grow to become even larger.  We also want to re-distribute and by the small agitation, slightly remix the ingredients. Following, fermentation can take hold again, and even more of the starch is converted to sugar.

#5 - Dividing

Divide the dough into the final portion sizes that the loaves should have.

#6 - Rounding 

Depending on what shape the final bread should have, it is given a temporary shaping. Either as a round ball or in an oblong shape (batard).

#7 - Rest/Benching

If you work the dough too much it will tense up, and become difficult to shape. If you strech it and it rebounds back to its original shape, you're done with rounding.  We rest the dough at this point. Typically for about half an hour.

#8 - Shaping

The bread is formed into it's final shape. There are several options. French bread, baguettes, rolls, braided bread, kringle etc. 

#9 - Proofing (secondary fermentation)

Typically it will rise until doubled in size. Proofing is what determines how "airy" the bread will eventually become and is very important..

#10 - Baking 

Just before baking is when you should score the bread.  During the bake, typically it reaches an internal temperature of 82°C-99°C (180°F-210°F) before it is finished. It is okay to use a digital meat thermometer to measure when it is done.

#11 - Cooling 

The bread must cool for at least 30 minutes, but preferably a few hours, before it can be eaten.  The bread simply isn't finished before that.  

#12 - Storage and eating

To keep the crust crisp for as long as possible, you should store it in a paper bag, if it will be eaten in a couple of days. Otherwise, bread is stored in a airtight plastic bag. It makes the crust soft but retains the moistness of the crumb as long as possible. You can't do both.