Blast from the past

When cold weather starts to settle in and hot soup returns to the menu baguettes are made to serve with it. I landed on TFL years ago searching for help with making  baguettes. This was around the time Jane Dough and David Snyder were developing the recipe from Bouabsa’s baguettes which were the current prize winner in Paris. This simple recipe has stuck with me ever since. The original recipe I still use is unchanged and far more reliable than any other method I tried previously. I saw the recent posts about baguettes 🥖 so I’m throwing my sticks on the pile. 

I used King Arthur AP organic flour that was past the expiration date and Red Star ADY with bottled spring water and Baleine sea salt. I also added a dollop of sourdough starter for flavor. 
Combine the flour and the 1/4 tsp of dry yeast with the water holding back 10 ml of water to add with the sea salt after 20 minutes. The desired dough temp is 74F. These are hand mixed with minimal kneading or gluten development except for one round of bowl folds followed by two or three coil folds twenty minutes apart and then into the fridge for approximately 21 hours. They should only show slight growth or the appearance of a few bubbles before they are retarded. The next day start preheating the oven to 475F and take the dough out of the fridge and divide into three pieces and pre shape into letter folds and rest seam up. Wait until they start to wake up and show some life before shaping. It’s better to bake them slightly underproofed for maximum expansion on the baking stone. My convection oven works ok for the short time that steam is needed but it lacks the radiant heat that my older oven had so I don’t get the colors on the crust that I used to get. I know it’s less messy or safer but the older style ovens with the heating elements above the floor rather than underneath it were better for bread baking. They bake for 27 minutes because the oven door is opened a few times to rearrange them for  more even baking.   
 

It’s been many months since I last made baguettes and while they are never perfect I was pretty happy with how they came out. They were fairly elastic from waiting too long before putting the dough in the fridge and they shrunk from their intended length. The crust was thin and crispy and the crumb was decent for being so out of practice. 
Happy baking Don