The dreaded baguettes
Hi Everyone I'm new to the forum although I've been reading it for a long time as it's so useful.
I've been baking white/rye bread with the no-knead technique for quite a while and quite successfully but, encouraged by the forum, I really wanted to strike out a bit.
Yesterday I made my first batch of baguettes very exactly following the recipe from Anis Bouabsa. As far as I'm aware Giusto's flour is not available in the
UK but I used a real French flour from Wessex Mill which I can buy at the farmer's market without paying a whopping delivery charge.
I'm very proud to say that they were absolutely delicious with a crisp crust and a really tasty, chewy inside so I was very pleased with them. Needless to say they're all gone now! However, I did find that they were so wet and tacky that moving them from the cloth to the oven was almost impossible. I rested them on strips of baking parchment on the cloth and then lifted them onto the baking stone sitting on the parchment. This didn't seem ideal as I would have preferred the bottoms of the baguettes to sit immediately on the stone and to be a little better baked.
The French flour is quite a bit softer (9.5 )than the Giusto and am wondering whether this made it so difficult to handle. If anyone can advise if I should use less water next time and how much less I'd be most grateful.
I have noticed that quite a few people have a problem with the folding and rolling and there is a very good video on U-tube from Saveurs, Dartmouth part 1 which I found extremely useful. There the dough definitely seemed easier to handle and not as tacky as mine. Baguette dough seems, to me, a little like
teenagers i.e. it's very alive, has a strong-mind of it's own and you have to be both gentle and firm with it at the same time. Not easy ......
Thanks in advance for any help