Sourdough baguettes?
I am beginning to make my own sourdough, and due to a bunch of food intolerances I need to keep the ingredients very simple. I am making sourdough with just water, sprouted flour, salt and starter. I was wondering if I would have good results if I cooked it in a baguette style loaf. But whenever I look up recipes, they add a bunch of other ingredients for the baguette recipe. I have been looking at a baguette style stone for baking but don't want to make the investment if it will not turn out the way I'm hoping. Is there any way if I follow the regular directions for making sourdough, except put it in a longer rectangular stone instead, that it will turn out the way I'm hoping?
I just prefer the uniform slices of longer loaves. Hoping this will be as simple as I'm thinking
Proper baguette will have only four ingredients: flour, water, leavening, and salt. So, I don't see why you should not be able to make a baguette the way you want to make it.
For your baguette recipe, search TFL for the Fromartz recipe. I've had great success with it. As Suave has said, most "authentic" baguette recipes are just the four ingredients. I've made the Fromartz many times with just my starter, no added yeast at all. (His recipe adds a small amount of yeast as a boost.)
That being said, I wonder about adding salt to your starter. Salt is a yeast inhibitor, so it seems counterintuitive. If you have difficulties establishing a starter with your added salt, leave it out. I have never added salt to my starter.
jaywillie
I'm just going by the ingredients of the bread I buy from a local baker. I can't afford to keep driving 2 hours round trip once a week for 2 loaves of bread. I'm just wanting as fermented bread as possible to break down the gluten, do you think adding salt will inhibit that then? I want the sourest natural sourdough I can make with the 4 ingredients, or less
And ps thanks for the recipe I'm checking it out now
Baguette is a shape rather than a formula (OK, in France, there is "baguette" formula, but there's enough additives in the flour to turn you off pretty quickly). Whip up a batch of bread dough and shape it into a baguette. A dough with a 3:2:1 ratio of flour:water:starter should give you good results for starters. Maybe back down the starter a little to avoid too much acidity, which can inhibit proper baguette shaping.
Or do a search through the blog of alfonso, who is a veritable master of the baguette. That guy turns everything into a baguette, and his would make the envy of even the best Parisian bakers.
Good luck !
Great thank you!
"You got me!" Thanks to lepainsamidien for outing me, and for the embarrassingly fine opinion.
It is actually alfanso (with an 'a' in the middle), as I was christened on my first day of Italian Language classes at the Italian Cultural Center by the instructor. And for the record, there probably isn't a professional baker in France who couldn't run rings around me! Le Pain's comment made me laugh out loud, something that I don't do often. So thanks a bunch!
Allora. You are interested in the sourest SD, and I lean toward the milder end of the flavor profile. But which doesn't really matter if you have a culture that you've groomed to be quite sour. Some folks, dabrownman for instance, are expert at wringing quite sour levains for their breads. Someone like him would be a good resource although there are enough others to enrich you in your quest for "sour".
As far as minimal ingredients you can pare it down to three: Flour, Water and Salt. I exclude yeast because a levain culture is composed of only Flour and Water. And just like with dough, the flour itself can by comprised of a myriad selection of differing types of flour.
The timing of your interest happens to dovetail on the same calendar day that I posted a long writeup for some else interested. It is here, if you have an interest to review it and a bottle of NoDoz handy...
And the recommendations to Fromartz? A fine way to start.
and he publishes videos here. He makes tons of baguettes and uses the metal baguette pans that really great and make the baguettes come out more round without a flat bottom. Check out those videos and pans.
I love the idea of multigrain sprouted baguettes. Regular baguettes are very plain, made from the cheapest flour and the Wonderbread of France. Yours will be healthy, hearty and tasty too.
Good luck
Awesome I'll definitely check it out, I was going for sprouted flour since it's healthier and I eat a ton of my sourdough bread to keep from losing weight. I figured trying it with sprouted flour will still taste amazing and offer extra health benefits. I'll definitely check out the pans he uses too, I wanted to make baguette style so my sandwich slices were even but any long loaf pan will do. Thanks everyone for your help!
And great article Alfanso! I liked the tip about long cold fermentation, makes these guessing games easier for me as a newbie.
I believe I need to clarify. A sourdough starter is a separate thing from a sourdough loaf of bread. I think I mistook what you said as "beginning to make my own sourdough" as trying to grow a starter, with which you can leaven your bread. And I think you were meaning it as a definition of your loaf of bread. My comment about salt pertained specifically to using it in a starter. Except for some very rare exceptions, it's absolutely necessary in the final bread dough.
One tip for sour flavor that I read here on TFL a long time ago involved the ratios used in feeding your starter. Make the ratio of the new flour and water 7:1 to your "seed culture," your old starter. I had been doing something like 3:1 or 2:1. I noticed a distinct flavor difference with the new ratio. For me it did not translate into bread that was appreciably more sour, but the starter sure was. I did not investigate it more, because I was not in search of more sour flavor.
jaywillie
Oh yes I meant the recipe itself, that's where the confusion was with the salt I think. I just wondered why whenever I tried to find a sourdough baguette recipe they had other ingredients added, but I think lepainSamidien answered about the baguette being a shape and any bread in that shape would essentially be baguette that cleared it up. Thanks for the input I enjoyed your article