Noobie trying a high hydration baguette recipe but failed---->

Don't expect too much too soon: if your first try tasted good, you're already ahead of the game; not infrequently folks start out by (inadvertently) baking a brick!

As evidence of how hard baguettes are, just poke around TFL and see all the litter of queries, experiences, and competitions to bake "the perfect baguette". Also, working with high hydration doughs takes some practice (it doesn't come naturally).

High hydration doughs have a tendency to "pancake" during proofing (and "solutions" are often tradeoffs; many reduce either the flavor or the holes) . Things that may help include:

• shorter poofing time (if recipe can be tweaked to support it)
• shaping techniques that create a very strong "gluten skin" around the surface of the loaf
• more side support during proofing (French bread recipes usually involve a "couche", 'artisan' breads often rely on "bannetons")
• higher gluten flour (but this will make the texture more "chewy", which may not be acceptable)
• put colder dough in oven to bake (assuming it's already properly proofed:-) before it has much chance to warm up and lose its shape
• completely give up and instead bake in a pan the right shape and size (Le Creuset? Dutch Oven? etc.?)

And 'yes', depending on your refrigerator temperature, retarding for two days rather than one can sometimes remove enough gluten the bread has an even harder time retaining any shape.

(Also note that for this particular recipe, even made by someone with plenty of experience and all the right equipment, the crumb shot pictures show loaves that aren't exactly "round".)

Hi Ray,

I have responded your message, but some more thoughts here:

You don't mention which baguette recipe you have tried, but from the comment about "refrigerator", I am guessing it's the one with long autolyse and long retarding? If so, here are potential problems:

1. Not enough dough developement. Did you S&F before ratarding? How does the dough feel? Yes, it should be wet and tacky, it's the nature of this dough, but it should also be elastic. Oil you hands and container, and do plenty of S&F, until the dough is bouncy and able to be stretched long without breaking;

2. You shaped it right out of fridge, which means the dough may not have had a full bulk rise. I find different yeast/dough/fridge temp means vastly different bulk rise time for this dough. For the first few times I make it, I put the dough in a clearly marked plastic container so I can see exactly how much it has risen. I aim to have it risen to 1.5X to 2X of original size, otherwise the end product would lack volume. If its not risen enough right out fo the fridge, keep it in room temp until it has. That's where I mean by "listen to the dough, not the recipe, not the clock, not anyone/anything else"

3. Of course it's also possible that your fridge is too warm and the dough has over-risen, in that case you should know since the dough would look risen then collapsed.

4. How much time did you proof? It might be too long, for baguettes, it's better to proof shorter than too long

5. You might not have make the surface tension tight enough during shaping and pre-shaping. I make these baguettes (and a sourdough version I will post soon) every week, sometimes two baguettes in the same batch could look very different, all because careless shaping for one of them.

That's all for now, I hope it's helpful. Good luck and keep trying, it took me a whole year before producing OK baguettes, and I am still working on these high hydration ones.