Proofing baskets

it doesn't have to be expensive. line a bowl with rice flour dusted teatowell - it works well and I did this for quite a while. 

you could try ebay - I bought some from there (for batards) - shipped from China and I am happy with them.

As leslieruf already pointed out any appropriate sized basket or vessel will work. But to make things easier I would suggest to get some flax fabric - linnen and use it instead of any cotton kitchen cloth. Linnen makes things so much easier and the dough does not stick to it although you use just a little bit of flour for dusting. Since I am using linnen I would never use cotton cloth again. The difference is like day and night. My dough does not stick to linnen. In case it does it is easy to resolve this by slowly removing linnen from the dough.

Happy baking, Joze 

baskets. I would love some bannetons  I really can't justify the price when I have perfectly good baskets. I used to line my baskets with cloth but now, I dump my dough right in the rice floured basket. No more dealing with flour all over the place due to the cloth. Small wicker baskets will work too. 

rice sieve.  Also any of the bamboo (natural) baskets used for sifting, drying or whatever.  The idea is to let the dough surface dry a little as it rises.  So you want to keep the basket up off any closed surfaces, a wire trivet works well or rack under the form as the dough rises.  One can even line the basket with a paper towel and dust it.  I used an empty paper tissue box a few months ago.  Lined it with parchment paper and then transferred the dough parchment and all to the oven.   A large metal sieve works too.  You want a shape with a little height to it and not too flat to create skin "memory.".

baskets in all sizes and shapes.  Just rice flour them up and away you go.  I got all of mine at the Tthrift shop for 50 cents each.  They work fine, just look for cane ones rather than grass ones.

Happy basket hunting