Round Loaves of Bread

You know those lovely, round, rustic-looking loaves of bread?  I could never pull them off.  I tried making a round ball of dough, let it rise, and bake it.  What did I get?  Something flatter than I wanted, with edges that were way too flat.

So I tried putting the dough-ball into a greased bowl.   After it rose and baked, I would turn it out onto the cooking rack, only to find a "loaf" that was so roly-poly that it seemed tippy and unstable.  And who wants unstable bread? 

This weekend I experimented with a springform pan, the kind you use for cheesecake.  Hot diggety dog!  That's the way to do it.  The sides of the springform pan set a limit to how far the bread can spread out flat-like.  The dough is forced to rise up instead of out.  But the sides of the pan are straight, so the loaf is more even; and the loaf will not have the rounded sides & bottom that develop from being baked in a roundish bowl. 

PS: I put one large loaf of bread (maybe 4 cups of flour?) into a well-greased 9" cheesecake pan.  That worked beautifully.