Handsome ficelles!

Great oven spring too, David! Did you slash them in one stroke from end to end, or did several cuts burst open together? Lovely colour. Do you stretch them into shape, or do you roll them?

David,

Nice to see you... and your bread! They look lovely. I don't drink café au lait anymore except on a rare occasion as a treat, but one of my very favorite breakfasts is a BIG café au lait with ficelles like yours spread with butter and jam. Absolutely heaven! Add to that sitting at an outdoor café on the edge of the beach in a town called Collioure:

http://www.collioure.com/gb/index-gb.htm

I have been playing around with baguette recipes, but these remain my favorite.

Jane

'nuff said

Mini

Very nice David. Looks like marvelous crunch with that crust.

Rosalie

Such beautiful bread! I made my first baguettes last week in my new wood-fired bread oven.  They were good, but no better than what you can buy in the shops, and not anything like the beauties here! I wonder if the ice cubes in a cast iron pan would work in a brick oven. Any ideas out there?

Wonderful ficelles!  I really appreciate the way you wrote out your directions for making them...everything very nicely done and the jam, coffee, cafe au lait....just my cup O tea!

Sylvia

David

Looks very tasty....

beautiful color, crust and crumb!!!!!

Thanks for posting these wonderful pictures and recipe.  I had good luck today with your recipe adapted to a room-temperature ferment -- see here.  I don't know how you managed to get such great rip on the top with this wet dough.

Scott

Yes - we use a wood-handled mop (well wrung out) - to clean the sole of ashes and add moisture, but I was warned by Alan Scott that I should never use any free water on the firebricks. I think that I will start to mop for a longer period of time, adding more steam and also try the ice-cube in the loaf pan and the boiling water in the cast-iron pan. Thanks for you thoughts! It 's really fun to try to figure this stuff out!

-Marcia

They look really super - I MUST give this method a go! Thanks for sharing !

Andrew

As my regular baguette bake follows PR's Ancienne formula (which my kids and grandkids literally inhale), I had to try your ficelle recipe, David.

I wasn't sure of what the dough temperature was supposed to be so, I nuked the water for about 30 seconds (my well water is so cold in the winter, drinking a full glass causes brain freeze).

The next evening I removed the dough from the cooler and had to make a quick trip to YouTube to check out the baguette shaping videos.  The dough was so responsive that I missed the mark of short, thin baguettes, winding up with three long thin baguettes and one shorter one (I should have weighed the dough before cutting it).  There was no going back at that point and while my shaping skills need work, it was great fun working with the dough.

I should have slashed deeper, or vertically.  Actually, I'm surprised I was even able to get a few cuts in.

The ficelles tasted wonderful; the crumb was nice and open, and the crust was crisp and chewy. 

I will definitely practice making more of these, but am curious about the water temperature you used, and what effect using water of 40F would have.

Thanks so much for posting this formula.  These will make great Christmas gifts!

I will definitely try the sourdough and rye variation - tonight, in fact.

Thanks so much for posting the formula and for your encouragement!

Lindy

Hi David

It looks great, I want to try it. Could you please, explain more the step no. 4?

What type and size of a mixing spoon do you use, what movements make the proper stretching and folding etc.

Also do you bake it with the parchment paper?

Thank you for all the explanation. I am a newbee.

Alka

I tried this tonight but I don't have a scale (yet), so I used an online conversion to approximate.  I used 5 cups of flour when I think it should have been more like 4.  Does this sound right? 

After I realized it wasn't right I adjusted the water up at the beginning of the autolyse and tried to follow the method but the dough was very elastic, nowhere near what the video shows.  I'll still cook the bastards, no sense in wasting the flour but I don't have high hopes.  Who knows, stranger things have happened.

I'm going to try this recipe again later this week when I finally break down and buy a scale.

Good work for a first attempt. Just from the appearance, I think you needed higher hydration, but there are some alternative possibilities. 

How is the flavor?

I like your attitude! Looking forward to seeing your progress.

David

I thought the flavor was very good but not as good as others I've made using a poolish start.  Hopefully that comes around this weekend when I try again.

Of course my kids thought they were great and ate them all already.  What can I say, they're easy to please :)

hi,

first, thank you for sharing!

second ive tried the directions posted but my baguettes dont seem to bloom in the oven. i suspect it must be due to my shaping skills. when shaping the baguette after the 60min rest, how 'tight' do you roll? is one to treat the dough gently or push out the air? i watched a few clips on youtube and it seems that the final shaping of the baguette is pretty tight.

Hello all,

I've just recently joined the site after snooping around for awhile.  I just finished my first try at baking the ficelles using Boabsa's formula.  Everything seemed to be going well up until the preshaping step.  After the 21 hours in the fridge the dough seemed to have almost doubled (although it didn't look like a whole lot of dough I must say).  I had tons of trouble handling the dough, it was impossibly sticky.  Is this normal?  I've seen several videos of baguette shaping and mine just seemed way to soft and sticky to shape properly. 

Slashing with a razor blade was difficult as well.  Even when trying to make quick slashes the blade would stick and drag the dough.

In the end they turned out fine (a bit mishapen) but the crum was probably not as holey as it could be and the crust maybe slightly under crispy (there was a decent crispness factor but not as good as David's above).  Should it be so crispy that it's almost as if the slices have been in a toaster?

Photos:

They taste great anyways.

Liam

Trying your formula and improving my baguette scoring techniques will be the focus of my upcoming weekend baking.  Would you please give me some suggestions on what I could have done differently in terms of angle, depth and handling, etc., based on my 090525 batch? Any comments are greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

Yippee

Sorry for the confusion.  I meant the '090525 Baguette Make-over' entry.  Thank you.

Yippee

David:

My baguettes were over proofed last night and did not have much oven spring.  Therefore, the 'ears' did not show at all.  I'll redo it and keep you posted.  Thank you.

Yippee

David:

I may have failed the scoring test but the taste and texture of these baguettes were phenominal.  My kids have told me that these were the best tasting baguettes I've made so far.  

Hope my next batch would be picture perfect as well.

Yippee

Thanks for all the wonderful help here. After my 5th loaf I've made some progress using

Hamelman's “Stretch and Fold in the Bowl” no-knead technique

After 21 hours my dough had more air, bubbles, and activity that I had ever seen. I wasn't really sure where to go from there hoping to not mess it up so I went back to recipe written above (and cut and pasted steps7-16 below, now numbered 1-10).

I divided the dough into 4 pieces VERY CAREFULLY as instructed but felt like I lost some of the air and bubbles. After resting for an hour I VERY CAREFULLY "shaped into ficelles" and here I felt like I lost even more air and bubbles. i DON'T THINK i EVER RECOVERED FROM THERE AS (please excuse the caps) as during the resting times I never got any more rise. Could someone please go into more detail about how to exactly proceed following the 21 hours in the fridge. I felt like I was so close only to watch it go out the window after waiting the 21 hours. The taste was good, the crumb was fair but my bread didn't "Blow" like I want it to. Any help is Greatly Appreciated. Thanks.

1. Allow preshaped pieces to rest, covered with plastic, for 1 hour.
2. Shape into ficelles (short, thin baguettes).
3. Proof en couche or on parchment paper dusted with semolina for 45 minutes.
4. Pre-heat oven to 500F with baking stone in middle rack and a cast iron skillet and a metal loaf pan on the lowest rack. Preheat 45 minutes or longer before baking.
5. 3-5 minutes before baking, place a handful of ice cubes in the loaf pan. Shut the oven door. Bring water to a boil.
6. Transfer the ficelles to a peel and load them onto the baking stone. Pour one cup of boiling water into the skillet. Close the oven door.
7. Turn the oven down to 480F.
8. After 10 minutes, remove the loaf pan and the skillet from the oven.
9. Continue baking for another 10-15 minutes until the loaves are nicely colored, the crust is hard all around and the bottom gives a hollow sound when tapped. Internal temperature should be at least 205F.
10. Cool on a rack completely before slicing.

Thank you so much for sharing this recipe/technique.

Although I have only baked a few Lahey/Bittman "no knead" breads before , I took the jump/challenge with this one and I am thrilled with the results. It is doable by a rookie (with a firm but not overly hard hand).

I made this recipe exactly as written and then a few days later did it with the substitution of 200 grams of flour and water with the addition of a friend's sour dough which I then used a bowl stretch and fold x 3 with 2 stretch and fold on the counter to practice that technique but I did not do the  21 hour cool temp rest. Both turned out amazing. I have not yet graduated to putting pics of my bread and crumb on line so as to then link them to this site but trust me the results of this base can be tremendous even to those with minimal experience!

I do think however without viewing a number of Youtube videos of the stretching and folding, shaping and forming the results would have been much worse. Seeing the activity was critical I think to handling this this dough.

For those wondering just what is produced, the yield was 4 "smallish" loaves, about 15 inches long, since that was the longest dimension of my pizza stone.

Half a loaf would be just right for a large sandwich for one (but I could not limit myself to only that) or two great bases for garlic bread to accompany a meal.

Cheers!

curious David.  Why both the skillet with boiling water and the ice cubes in the pan?  Just for the quantity of steam?

I normally steam by adding some water to a pyrex pan while the oven comes to temp, then add 2 or 3 cups to the pan at bake time for the first 10 mins.

I assume that the cast iron isn't "injured" with this use?

Hi David,

Just a few questions before I try this on the weekend:

Where do you get these plastic scrapers?

Any recommendations, from you or others on shaping these sticky boogers when you have limited space? Love the stretch/fold in the bowl method while living in my RV but still figuring out where the heck I'm going to work with my doughs.

I'm going to be trying this on my outdoor gas grill so any extra suggestions regarding this would be appreciated as well. My plan is to pick up some saltillo tiles to cover the grill grates and then place these ficelles on a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Hoping I love this recipe, can use it as my everyday practice recipe to learn how to work with stretchy rye dough without the expense of wasting so much rye.

Do you have a comprable whole grain recipe you could point me towards with the no-knead method?

Tracy

Dear David,

Since taking a Le Cordon Bleu baking class in Paris, I have been hooked on baking.  I spent countless amount of hours and butter to try to perfect the croissant in my own home oven.  Now, with a better understanding on protein content, overproofing, etc, I felt it was time to jump in and start the long road in perfecting the baguette.  I have been reading and re-reading and re-reading (can i re-iterate the re-reading part) the blogs of your journey to perfecting the baguette, that you, Mark, Janedo and others have so unselfishly been posting.  Although LCB had a different recipe for the baguette, I decided to try Anis Bouabsa's version.  This is what I did:

I followed your instrustions, BUT, used Mark's 5 second kneading with the dough hook 3x technique instead of the no-knead version you posted.  I don't know why, but after the 18 hour retardation (really wanted to have them for dinner), I inadvertantly divided them into 3.  290 grams, 290 grams, and finally 308 grams.  After I had pre-shaped them, I realized you had mentioned that you divided your dough 4x - making each pre-shaped dough appx. 220g. each.  I was off my 70 g for each pre-shaped dough.  I was really stressed.  But, I had no choice but to forge forward.

After an hour, I did shape them, but did not feel that the dough was responsive to rolling.  Is this usual???  I had to stretch them out a bit.  And I let them proof en couche for 45 min.  I put them directly on pizza stone at 500 degrees with steam for 10 of the 25 min.  I found that I could not go the entire 25 minutes since it was starting to burn.  I also realized how important scoring the ficelles correctly assists in a better baguette.  Anyways so my questions:

1.)  Why did it burn at 20 min??  Heavier dough, I would think would require more baking time.  I did forget to decrease temp to 480.  Would that have made that big of a difference?

2.) How do I know that I have scored deeply enough?  I don't want to deflate?

3.)  After the dough has been shaped into the final ficelles, did you proof under a plastic bag or leave it open?

The results:  Despite the burn, the crumb was amazing.  Big holes and it did have a sweet taste.  I was really surprised with the sweet taste.  Great crust.  I should have taken a picture, but it was all gone by the time I thought about taking them.

Thanks for the help.

Dear David,

I'm uploading the pics of my 2nd attempt of Anis Bouabsa's baguettes.  I can't seem to get the scoring right.  I feel like I've scored enough, but once in the oven, I can immediately tell I didn't score deep enough.  What do I need to do?

Also, this is my 1st attempt to upload pics.  I hope it works.

Thanks,

Marie

Pre-Autolyse

After 22 hr. retardation in fridge

Pre-shaped en couche

Shaped and scored.  I'm not sure if I'm scoring right.

Right out of the oven.  Appx. weight 225-230 gms.

Crumb

A little blurry but another view of the crumb.

Hi, Marie.

The baguettes look very good. Lovely crumb!

The problem with your scoring is not that it's too shallow. For classic baguette scoring, the cuts need to be almost parallel to the long axis of the loaf and overlapping about 1/4 of their length. Like this:

I hope this helps.

David

Hi David

I'm having a bash at your baguette and was interested re the amount of fast acting yeast as the one I use in the UK (Doves Farm) suggests 1tsp per 500g of flour.  Is just 1/4 tsp enough per 500g? or does the long retard make up for this......

Cheers

Steve

Thanks David, will try that next time as it is now retarding in the fridge, I did use 'bout 1/4 tsp for half the recipe, and will let you know how that turns out, it is quite a wet dough to work with and I did give it little  stretch n fold before popping it into to the fridge. I did also add a splodge of sourdough starter (rye) for more of a pain campagne taste and as ever a little of my friends greek olive oil!, i'm also baking the Pierre Nury rustic rye tomorrow as well so hopefully plenty of good bread for the weekend cheese board and breakfasts

Cheers, Steve

Good morning David,

I have a new oven.  Out with the old 24" and in with the new Thermador Professional 30" convection.  Although I'm super excited about the oven and what it can do, I'm perplexed as to how to bake my baguettes.  I normally heat a cast iron pan and boil water.  Put the pan at bottom of oven and put the baguettes on stone.  Then I pour boiling water in the pan to create steam.

How do I create steam in a convection oven?  I've read that you can really use the convection fan to your benefit.  Does that mean I preheat the oven using the convection mode, put the pan on a rack, put dough on stone, and pour water in pan?  Do I turn off the convection mode and switch to bake after I put the water in?

Thanks much in advance.......

Misheil

So, I made the ficelles and I followed the recipe accurately.  The dough was quite slack so scoring was unsuccessful and came out more like a Pain a l'ancienne.  Crumb, taste, and crust were great but I was not happy with the looks.  Should I have added more flour as I stretched & folded to bring it to French dough consistency?  Well see picture to see what it looked like.

Nick

Thanks David!

I did an additional 2 S&Fs at 45 minute intervals as per your comment a couple posts ago and I could see a very big improvement in the gluten development when I was S&Fing the dough the last 2 times. 

I used KA French Style flour and I don't think I am liking it.  I want to try with AP flour and see what the difference would be.  The crumb and flavor were great, better than any Pain a l'ancienne I have made in the past with the same flour.  I have no problem working with slack dough and I am really great at getting the rustic look but some day I would like to make some pretty baguettes, haha.

Is this the same formula you use for making regular French baguettes?

Nick

Nick

Can you recommend a recipe with 50g of ww flour?

Currently I have a bag of Pills BfB that's, I'd guess, a little lower in the protein level then is desired.  Should I substitute some KAB?

metropical,

If you have BBA the Poolish Baguettes recipe is a WW French bread. I have not made it but I have heard good things about it.  Or, you can make Reinhart's Pain de Campagne.  It's 15.8% whole wheat flour, and is awesome.  I make it all the time and you can shape it any way you want.

Also, I don't see why you can't use any of these baguette recipes and substitute 50g of WW in for some of the regular flour.  I know a lot of people substitute some Rye or WW for some added flavor in their baguettes with great results.

I believe BFB is a bread flour and it is higher protein than AP flour.

Tell me how it goes and post some pictures.

Nick

Hi,

Some questions:

For how long do you mix flour and water at the first step?

is it important the dough gets any shape (I mean getting less sticky) during the process?

Why don't you add yeast at the first step?

Thank you!

well, it was fun...but I made some mistakes.  Well, maybe I could have played with the dough more....or added just a little more flour.

The taste is amazing...and everyone ate every bite within 20 minutes out of the oven.  I had to hurry and take the pic after the first one was gone!  I will continue to do over and hopefully get better!  

This is so on my to do list!

These are so beautiful, the color is amazing!

Is it possible for someone to explain how to transfer the proofed dough from the baker's linen onto the peel without them deflating? When I move my dough that's been proofed it seems like it looses all its height and doesn' recover in the oven. What is the correct way to do this?

David, Your bread is always so sweeet (in teenage vernacular that means fantastic, wonderful, beautiful,etc)   I aim for that beautiful color but don't always achieve it.  What is your best suggestion for consistent color ??   

Thanks,  Pam

David, Frankly, it new occurred to me to raise the temperature.  Thanks for a great idea.   Pam

are you letting the dough come to room temp after 21 hours or are you going right into preliminary shaping?

thanks for the help.

Hi David,

Your bread has really been working out well, but I would like to make a larger loaf as my family really likes sandwiches. I'm assuming (usually a big mistake) that I will need to lower the temp and time a bit. I would appreciate your input on this.

I will be taking a few classes with Mr. Hamelman over the next few months and will share my  experience when I return. Thanks for the help

Tad

loved the rye and sourdough idea!

Thanks much for posting this.

I have been using your formula/recipe for a couple of weeks for all kinds of breads, rolls, regular loaves, pizza crusts, etc. with great results.

And that's with a toaster oven with a measured maximum temperature of 400°F and no scales to weigh the ingredients!

I had a few questions:

1. Why twenty minutes autolyse rather than thirty, or twenty-one, for that matter? Is there anything magical about the number twenty, or is it just a reasonable minimum beyond which nothing useful happens?
2. Is it necessary to tightly cover the dough in between autolyse, and then between the successive strech & fold sequences?
3. Why twenty strokes when folding? I tend to end up with a few small lumps (I do not have a mixer and do it all by hand, usually 8-10 cups of flour) and I found that if I fold some fifty times or thereabouts, I end up with dough that's a lot smoother. Any risk this might.. ‘damage’ my gluten, so to speak?
4. Why 21 hours refrigeration? My schedule being what it is, I sometimes cut down the fermentation time to something like ten hours, and there have been times when I made the dough in advance and left it something like 36 or even 48 hours in the fridge. I noticed that when I use it after 8-10 hours, the dough is a bit more difficult to work with and the resulting crumb is slightly more compact. If I leave it more than 24 hours, on the other hand, I get a better rise and both the crust and the crumb are even better than when I stick with the recommended 21 hours.

I would greatly appreciate any comments on the above.

Thanks,

cj

Wow....it looks nice, thanks

i've completed this recipe twice.  both times the loaves were excellent, both in crust and crumb, but i've found it very difficult to shape (final shaping) them given how sticky the dough and wet the dough is.  does this mean i should reduce the hydration ratio, add a little flour during the final shaping, or do some post fridge stretch and folds to increase the membrane strength (is this even possible)? which option is best, is the last one even allowed?  any help would be most appreciated.

many thanks.

Hi, mccvi.

I'm glad you are enjoying this bread.

The dough is sticky. If you added flour during the final shaping, it would be un-fermented. You would just end up with streaks of raw flour in the loaves. Not recommended.

Handling slack dough is an acquired skill. Frequently dusting your hands with flour or wetting them may help. In my opinion, the real key is to use a light, fast touch. The dough will stick to your hands less if they are in contact with it for an instant at a time. If the dough sticks to the board a little, just loosen it with your bench knife. If it sticks a lot, you can dust flour on the bench lightly.

Again, a light (but firm), fast touch is the key to handling this dough. You can lightly dust your hands and the bench as needed, but try to avoid incorporating raw flour in the dough during shaping.

Hope this helps.

David

just did this one for the first time and just realized i only added half the yeast (i doubled the recipe, and had 3 small children running around me as i was mixing). guess i'll give this a nice, loooooooooooooooooooong fermentation time and see what happens.

Just baked the ficelles, they taste good, but the crumb is more compact, then it should be. Also the loaves are somewhat  heavy for their size. Please tell me what can cause this. Thanks

In lieu of stretching and lifting, can you use a Kitchen Aid  mixer,  fitted with a dough hook. I love to bake bread, but I am limited by an old multiple hand/wrist fracture. Merci beaucoup David

thanks David, for your prompt reply, I will try again.

So I followed this recipe and tried to make the starter, but after 21 hours of rise it ended in tears, because the dough was still far too tough (absolutely not sticky or elastic, as other commenters have mentionned). 

I used:

a mix of King Arthur All-Purpose White and Bread Flour (1:1) ~4.3 cups

1/4 teaspoon of instant dry yeast, 10 grams of salt

1.5 cups of water

It was impossible to fold starting out, and my hope was that it would soften up with a rise. It didn't soften, I tried adding water after the rise (out of desperation) and that failed. Now I have a hunk of flour in my garbage. What went wrong? Wouldn't it make more sense to dissolve the yeast and salt in the water before hand, then mix in the dough?

I usually dont respond to posts... BUT, this recipe is AMAZING!

Thank You David for sharing it.

I have been out of baking for at least a decade. I somehow wandered across your recipe and thought "what the hell", I am so glad I found it. A good friend of mine, also a physician, opened my eyes to what sorts of processed crap we have been putting in our bodies for years. Needless to say our family has made a change to a more healty diet.  He and I have been going back and forth, in sort of a "one up ya" contest, we are both "foodies". My only problem now is, I have to wait a day to get him a couple loaves because these are not going to make it past noon today.