November 4, 2014 - 8:06am
Intro and first Bouabsa baguettes
Hi everyone. I've just recently fallen down the bread-baking rabbit hole, and this looks like a great community. The attached image is my first shot at the Anis Bouabsa baguette recipe. I think it turned out alright, but I need more practice.
Share
Falling down the bread hole is better than falling down so may other holes:-) Welcome and
Happy baking
That's gorgeous! Is there a nice wine to accompany your bread and cheese? Can I come over?
I just had my first attempt at Bouabsa baguette myself. I baked it yesterday and it looked lot like yours, but not quite as good. I didn't get a chance to heat my stone enough so I didn't get the oven spring I was hoping for. Tasted good and reminded me more of my sourdough loaves in terms of texture. What were your thoughts on the texture and flavor? I have been trying baguettes with different pre-ferments and this was a divergence from that. I also made one piece of dough into a batard that ended up a little better. I am going to have to come back to this recipe sometime to try and get it right.
Welcome and you are correct that this is the place to be if you are trying your hand at bread baking.
I liked both the texture and the flavor. It wasn't as sour as what I generally associate with sourdough, but I imagine that it was sour relative to a bread with a shorter, room-temperature fermentation. I'd have preferred for the crumb to have opened up a little more. I think I over-developed the gluten with my folds. Also, I totally putzed up the steaming and didn't really get the crispiness of crust that I was looking for. Also, I have yet to purchase an oven stone. I'm sure that'd improve my results.
All that said, this is the third batch of bread I've ever baked. While there were some things I wish I'd done better, I think it went well. I relied a lot on this really excellent video in terms of learning the various techniques that went into baking this batch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYvORu_oLYc
Hi nomolosca,
And welcome to TFL. Lots to learn here and to contribute when one wants to. Thank you for the kind words (and plug!) in referencing the video that I made recently for an acquaintance, who like you had never baked a baguette before. Your baguettes look lovely, especially for so new a baker, and also to do so without a baking stone! And they are indeed quite crisp from what I can gather in your photo.
But one clarification. These are commercially yeasted baguettes, and there is no sourdough/levain involved in the creation of these. The flavor that you should be experiencing is sweet and crisp on the palate. And I've read many times that it is quite difficult to overdevelop or over mix a dough by hand - that is, unless you are performing a 1000 french folds, rough house the dough for a 1/2 hour or something crazy like that!
If you have a mature sourdough/levain culture and want to create a version of these using that culture, I'm certain that you can poke around and find a hybrid of the Bouabsa using levain. For example, a delicious offshoot of this bread with levain are the Gosselin-Bouabsa Hybrid Baguettes a la DonD found at
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17453/gosselinbouabsa-hybrid-baguettes-à-la-dond .
CORRECTION: the above is a commercial yeast baguette, and delicious. But what I meant to key in is this link: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30650/sourdough-baguettes-my-version-gosselins-baguettes-tradition
alan
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the clarification. I'm aware that they aren't sourdough. That comparison was in reply to Maverick's comment which compared the baguettes to sourdough loaves. Also, thanks for the input on the potential to overwork the dough. I'm currently coming off a serious - borderline unhealthy, according to my wife - obsession with pies, where overworking dough is a big concern. It's fascinating to learn about the quirks of a different kind of dough.
I've currently got a sourdough starter developing, so maybe a sourdough baguette is in my future!
Thanks again!