Newbie Intend to bake baguette endup with sandwich bread

Baguettes are a challenge even for experienced bakers.

If you are serious about baking good bread consistently, you really need to start scaling your ingredients.  Volume measurements just don't cut it and are inaccurate.

Here's a fun recipe you could try, with detailed instructions: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19821/when-you-don039t-have-time-bake-bread-bake-bread

David Snyder wrote a terrific tutorial on scoring, which appears in the TLF Handbook.  Here's the link

Finally, I think you'll enjoy watching master baker Ciril Hitz shape baguettes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI-WstoakmQ&feature=related

He sure makes it look easy.

Is the water in your pre-ferment the only water in your recipe? Just want to make sure you didn't leave out water in the final dough in the recipe above. As is, the hydration seems to be way too low to get a baguette-like crumb.

Thank you for providing weight measurements to figure hydration.  (13.8oz / 10oz) That's a pretty wet dough and without any folding of the dough during the rises, helping to build some body and tension on the dough surface, I would expect the bread to come out like your pictures. 

Look into folding the dough.  You might also want to cut back on the water in the recipe if you find it too wet for you.  Removing 2 oz, one each from the overnight and the dough would be interesting for you as you are familiar with the recipe and results. 

Scoring, well, think of cutting the dough not across the loaf but longer more down the middle keeping your cuts within an imaginary 1" track running the length of the dough. With each cut back up an inch and cut again.  Keep the overlapping, side-by-side cuts close together, about finger width and angle the blade so one side of the cut will be thicker.

Playing around with one recipe will help your skills improve. :)

Why does TFL always do this? Ask a question, any question, and you will get in response:

• do you weigh your ingedients? You should weigh your ingredients.
• one million random unrelated questions.
• some other recipes you ought to try out instead of the one you're having trouble with.

The baguettes look like the dough was underdeveloped, and poorly shaped (which will go hand in hand). Mini's dead on with 'try some folding' but in general you should research:

1. How to knead or otherwise "develop" wet doughs.
2. How to tell when it's well developed (windowpane).
3. How to shape baguettes.

This video shows one method for kneading (developing) very wet dough:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvdtUR-XTG0

This video shows the windowpane test (it works with very wet doughs as well, and the thing to note is that your don't just hoick the dough into a window, you're teasing it out):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k5a2ZbJN_s

The Ciril Hitz video cited in an earlier reply is excellent on how to shape a baguette.

Youtube has many other videos on all these topics. Check 'em out, but be a little cautious -- there's some terrible videos out there full of wrongness!

If your ferment is long enough, you can knead less and use more handling during the bulk ferment to get adequate development (search for "stretch and fold" on these forums).

As indicated, baguettes are a bit tricky. Step one, though, is to hit well-developed dough (that is, "kneaded or whatever you do" enough to get a windowpane indicating good gluten development). Next up, get well-developed dough shaped properly. Finally, get your well-developed dough which is properly shaped proofed correctly (risen the right amount) so it's expand but not "blow out" in the oven.

These all interact: shaping the dough develops it to a degree! Time spent proofing also develops the gluten a bit. If the final proof is very long, that will impact how you shape to a degree, since the dough is sitting around changing for longer.

So, don't be surprised if you get the dough development bang on, and then find that you're underproofing, so you proof longer, and suddenly, damn it, my dough development isn't quite right any more.

The baguette is one of the first breads many new bakers attempt.. yet, it's one of the hardest breads to master.  Even experienced bakers really have to practice over and over and over again to make a stunning baguette. 

I can only assume that the Baguette is such a great loaf with such good flavor that it is the most popular bread type in the world.. who wouldn't want to recreate it at home?

Don't give up... try starting out with easier recipes from a good book (see book recommendations on this website) and work your way into a baguette when you're feeling more comfortable with terms and techniques.  I think once you master smaller baking projects with ease, your confidence and experience will help you get an acceptable home baked baguette. Amolitor is right.. there are good videos out there, and some really bad ones too.. once you gain experience, you'll be able to tell the difference, but for me.. a great book or two is a wise investment.

Good luck!