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For Parth- My Baguette Recipe

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Ingredients

For the Poolish

  • 100g flour choose wisely 1
  • 0.5g yeast choose wisely 2
  • 100g water- room temperature

For the Dough

  • 300g flour
  • 170g water
  • 7g salt
  • 2g yeast

Prerequisite Baking Tools

  • Couche (linen proofing cloth)
  • Bread pan
  • Bread Lame
  • mixing owls
  • bowl covers (or plastic wrap)

Make the Poolish

Add yeast and mix with flour, then add water and combine together in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, leave for 8 to 12 hours. Yeast will rise slowly, so account for this with bowl choice. When ready it should look bubbly and smell a bit like sweet beer.

Prepare the Dough

  • mix together the flour and yeast and salt
  • add the water and poolish
  • combine

Rest and Fold

repeat 4X (total 2 hours): - let rest 30 minutes, then fold the dough: Instead of kneading, every 30 minutes, reach under the dough, pull it up, and fold it over itself

Break the dough into 3 equal pieces, roll them into rough log shape

let rest 15 minutes

Roll into baguette shape (long cylinders)

  • dust flour onto linen clothe and add the dough
  • let rise in couche 45-60 minutes

Prep the oven

  • preheat with the bread pan in the oven, to 250c (as high as it goes)
  • take the hot bread pan out, add the bread dough
  • score the dough with the lame 3-5 quick, overlapping slashes
  • put in the oven, add 4 ice cubes to the bottom of the oven

  • bake for 15-20 minutes until deep, golden mahogany color

  • optional technique, if your oven will go higher, give it 10 minutes at high heat, then reduce for 5-6 minutes more.

Post bake

  • remove from oven
  • remove bread from hot pan, place on a wire rack or something to give it air on all sides
  • let it rest 30 minutes before serving, otherwise the dough will be gummy

  1. That the choice of flour is an extremely important first step. You'll want it to be a French system T55 flour. This will impact water absorption, fermentation speed, and flavor and texture. This can be obtained by mixing flours. In the USA, King Arthur bread flour is good in so far as it doesn't contain the additives that many USA industrial flour contains. However, it still has higher protein content than artisanal baguette flour. It is possible to add cake flour. With Japanese flour, I mix bread flour/cake flour 70/30. ↩

  2. Instant Dry Yeast. Baguettes have very little sugar, and so you must use a yeast specifically for low-sugar/lean dough. Avoid yeast for sweet breads like brioche. ↩