Anis Bouabsa baguettes with Sourdough

Anis Bouabsa baguettes with Sourdough Crumb 

KAF French Style Flour........500 gms

Water..............................370 gms

Starter.............................100 gms

Salt..................................10 gms

Instant yeast.......................1/4 tsp

I activated my starter and let it ferment for only about 4 hours. It did double but was not at its peak. While the starter was noshing, I mixed the flour and water and let it autolyse for about 40 minutes. Then I added the starter, yeast and salt and mixed well in a bowl.

I used Pat's (proth5) method of mixing: In the bowl, stretch and fold using a plastic dough scraper 20 times, rotating the bowl 1/5 turn between each stroke. Repeat this every 20 minutes for an hour. At the end of that time, I had the best window pane I've every achieved. This is a great technique for somewhat slack doughs!

I then moved the dough to a 2 liter glass measuring pitcher with a tight fitting cover and refrigerated for 20 hours.

 The dough was then emptied onto a large wooden cutting board, well dusted with flour and divided into 3 sort of equal parts. It was less slack than my last batch and easier to shape. I gently preshaped into rounds and rested the pieces, covered with plastic wrap and a towel for 20 minutes. I then shaped into baguettes very, very gently so as to minimize bubble popping. The loaves were proofed for 1 hour on a parchment paper "couche."

 I had preheated the oven to 500F. I scored the baguettes. After loading the loaves onto my pizza stone and pouring hot water in a heated skillet, the oven was turned down to 460F on convection bake. After 10 minutes, I removed the skillet and turned the oven up to 480F, regular bake. I baked the baguettes for 25 minutes total. 

The loaves "sang" louder and longer than any I've baked. The crust was nice and crunchy. The crumb was the most open I've yet achieved in baguettes. I attribute this in large part to my shaping the baguettes more gently then ever before. I credit Janedo for the inspiration (as well as for the recipe).

I still need to work on scoring baguettes. *sigh*

David 

Anis-Boabsa-baguettes

Anis-Boabsa-baguettes Crumb

Last month, Janedo visited the bakery of Anis Bouabsa in Paris. This young baker had won the prize for the best baguettes in Paris this year. Jane was able to acutally meet M. Bouabsa, and he generously shared his formula and techiniques with her, which she then generously shared with us at TFL. See her blog topic:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/8066/great-baguette-quest-n%C2%B03-anis-bouabsa

Eric (ehanner} and Howard (holds99} have successfully made baguettes from the recipe I extracted from Jane's notes. I attempted them once with poor results, but that was while on vacation, in a rented house on the Oregon coast. I was eager to try these baguettes again with my familiar home oven and equipment. I was happy with the results, although not completely.

Formula for Anis Bouabsa's Baguettes

Flour 500 gms (about 3.85 cups of AP flour)
Water 375 gms (about 13.25 oz or about 1-2/3 cups)
Yeast 1/4 tsp (for instant yeast)
Salt 10 gms (about 2 tsp)

Mix ingredients and knead.

Ferment for 1 hour, folding every 20 minutes.

Refrigerate for 21 hours.

Divide right out of refrigerator and pre-shape. Rest for one hour.

Shape.

Proof for 45 minutes.

Score and Bake at 250C (480F) for 20-25 (?) min.

Notes:
I used King Arthur French Style Flour, filtered tap water, Balene Sea Salt and SAF instant yeast.

The dough was initially quite gloppy. I did a few french folds with minimal change in it. I then placed it in a covered glass bowl and folded every 20 minutes for an hour. Even before the first of these, after a 20 minute rest, the dough had come together nicely. It was still a bit sticky, but the gluten was forming surprisingly well. After the 3rd folding, I refrigerated the dough for 22.5 hours, then proceded per the recipe above.

The dough actually almost doubled in the refrigerator. It continued to form bubbles after preforming and the formed baguettes rose to about 1.5 times during proofing.

I baked with steam at 460F with convection for 10 minutes, then for another 10 minutes at 480F without convection. I let the loaves rest in the turned off and cracked open oven for another 5 minutes.

I got nice oven spring and bloom. One of the loaves burst along the side. In hindsight, I probably didn't seal the seam well enough in forming it. The crust was more crunchy than crackly - a bit thicker than standard baguettes. The crumb was fairly open with a cool, tender/chewy mouth feel. The taste was not bad but not as sweet as classic baguettes. I wonder why.

I'm going to have some tonight with chicken cacciatore (made yesterday), buttered broad beans and fedelini. Matter of fact, I better go get it all going!

David

Baguettes No. 1

Hi all, first time post for me. I usually lurk and quietly absorb all the information but I felt compelled to post these photos because I am so happy with them. I have been trying to make a whole wheat sourdough starter (after previous failure) from Sourdolady's formula. On day 4 it was bubbly and smelled wonderful. When I fed it, instead of throwing away the rest of the starter (I hate to do that, dont you?), and I was curious as to how it was performing so I added a bit of water and flour to the throw away starter and let it ferment in a bowl overnight. Then I refreshed it again the next morning. When I came home 8 hours later I added 1 cup of water, 1 tsp salt and 2.25 cups of bread flour to the starter until it formed a pretty springy dough that wasnt too sticky (didn't know if this 4-day starter would work so I didn't want to make too much!). 

After mixing the starter, water, flour and salt it was then a 20 min autolyse with 2 minute kneading afterwards, 1 hour ferment, stretch and fold at 1 hour mark, and another hour of fermenting. Then I did another stretch and fold after that hour was up and shaped the dough into a ball. Then I cut the dough up into 3 pieces and shaped it into baguettes and let it proof for 1 hour. This was baked in a 475 degree oven with steam for 35 minutes total. 

I was worried because the dough didnt rise too much during any of the fermenting/proofing stages so I thought it was going to be some flat sourdough baguettes indeed. But no! These baguettes had humongous oven spring. The pictures are below. I cut into it hot, sorry I couldn't wait! And wow! Huge irregular holes, soft and slightly chewy crumb, thick crunchy crust. There wasn't a "sour" flavor from the sourdough but it tasted so good. I guess the starter is doing pretty well because at 4 days it can make some good baguettes :) By the way, this is my first time making baguettes because I usually stick to whole wheat breads but I think this is going to be a regular thing now!

Thanks sourdolady for a starter formula that really works and all others for your bread wisdom!

sourdough baguettes

 baguette crumb

SF Sourdough Baguettes 6-29-08

SF Sourdough Baguettes Crumb 6-29-08

These baguettes were made with the formula for San Francisco Sourdough from Peter Reinhart's "Crust&Crumb." The firm starter was made with a mixture of Guisto's Organic (whole) Rye and King Arthur Bread Flour. The final dough was made with King Arthur European Artisan Flour.

The recipe makes 4-1/2 pounds of dough. I made two 1.5 lb. boules and these two baguettes. The dough was on the dry side, although I added about 1/4 cup of water during mixing. I cold retarded the formed loaves for about 18 hours. The baguettes were baked with steam for the first 10 minutes, then dry for another 15 minutes. The crust is crunchy, thicker than a traditional baguette. The crumb is less open than I wanted. The taste is typical of breads made with this dough - moderately sour and complex.

A word about the scoring, since that has been a source of frustration for me: These results are as good as I have ever obtained. I think the factors that contributed to it were 1) The dryer dough is easier to slash, 2) I was careful not to over-proof. They were baked 2 hours after being taken out of the refrigerator, 3) I consciously attempted to implement what Proth5 calls "Mental mis en place." I take this to mean clearing your mind of any other thoughts, then reviewing the procedure elements and visualizing the procedure before starting to slash, then executing the slashes quickly and smoothly according to the chosen procedure. I did not achieve perfection, but I feel I have progressed. What's needed is practice, practice, practice.

Here is one of the boules made with the same batch of dough:

SF Sourdough Boule 6-29-08

David

Rustic Baguettes made with Nury Light Rye dough

Rustic Baguettes Crumb made with Nury Light Rye dough 

As promised, I made some baguettes using Nury's Light Rye dough from Daniel Leader's "Local Breads." I followed Leader's recipe except for using a couple tablespoons less water, thinking it might work better for baguettes. In hindsight, I don't think this improved the product.

For those not familiar with the recipe, it is documented in Zolablue's original posting of her baking of this bread.

 http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5500/pierre-nury’s-rustic-light-rye-leader

This was an excellent thread. It led me to make this bread myself for the first time, and it remains one of my very favorites.

Leader's recipe calls for patting out the mass of fermented dough into a 10 x 10 inch rectangle, cutting it in half with a bench knife and gently transferring the cut pieces to floured parchment, then immediately baking it on a stone with steam. For these "baguettes," I simply sliced off 3 portions, about 2.5 cm wide each, and stretched them gently to 12 inches as I laid them on the parchment. I baked with steam at 500F for 10 minutes, then removed the skillet and loaf pan with the water and turned down the oven to 440F. The bake time was 17-20 minutes, total.

The baguettes are beautiful, in a very rustic way. The crust was very nicely crunchy, and the crumb was chewy. The taste was wonderful, as it always is with this recipe. The main difference between these baguettes and the "proper" Nury Light Rye is that the baguettes have proportionally much more crust, and the crust stays crisp rather than softening.

 My efforts to make traditional baguettes will continue, but this version is one I'll be making again. 

David 

This is my latest attempt at Maggie Glezer's Acme baguette recipe.  I used scrap dough and poolish as she specifies and the taste was very good.  I used K.A. First Clear flour for the scrap dough and K.A. French Style flour for the poolish and dough.  Still needs work on shaping technique. 

Glezer's Acme baguette recipe dough divided:

Dough divided for 2 baguettes and 1 batard after bulk fermentation

Glezer's Acme baguette recipe primary shaping:

Primary shaping

Glezer's Acme baguette recipe final shaping:

Final shaping

Glezer's Acme baguette recipe 2 baguettes and a batard:

2 baguettes, 1 batard

Glezer's Acme baguette recipe 2 baguettes and a batard

2 baguettes, 1 batard

Final shaping