Homemade Baguettes
Difficulty: Medium
Cooking time: [5 hours]
Makes 4 baguettes
One of the greatest things in the world is good fresh bread. Unfortunately during these hard times, access to good bakeries and bread, in general, is limited. However making bread at home is cheap, easy, and incredibly fun! All you knead is a little bit of time, love, and patience. A nice homemade baguette beats anything you can get from your local supermarket and has so many different uses. Such as for dipping in soups, sandwiches, and toasting for some nice garlic bread.
Food Dictionary:
Blooming: The process of checking if dry active yeast is still viable.
Couche: A cloth that is used to shape baguettes
The Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 kg All Purpose/ Bread Flour
750 g room temperature water
2 tsp instant active yeast
1 tbsp sea salt
2 tsp sugar
The Process:
First, you’re going to combine the yeast into the water and let it bloom for 10 mins.
The yeast should be bubbly and foaming. This is how you can tell if your yeast is alive or not. If there is no activity, then start over with some new yeast.
Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and water in a large bowl and start mixing with a wooden spoon until it becomes too difficult to do so.
This dough is extremely wet and it is hard to get the dough to come together.
Lightly flour your hands and knead the dough for about 15 minutes.
After kneading put the dough back into the initial bow, cover and let rest for 45 minutes
After 45 minutes pour the dough onto a clean surface and begin picking the dough up off the work surface and slap it down, folding the dough upon itself. After each slap and fold, rotate the dough 90% and repeat. Do this process for about 10 minutes.
It is important to not flour the work surface when doing this step in order to maintain the 75% hydration of the dough.
After completing step 5, place the dough back into the bowl, cover, and let rest for another 45 minutes.
Repeat steps 5 & 6 another 3 times before letting the dough rest once more for 1 hour.
After the dough is rested, place the dough onto a floured work surface and divide it into 4 equal pieces.
Flatten one of the dough segments by pressing down on it and roll the dough into a long but fat roll. Shape the ends by folding it underneath the dough. Repeat for all dough segments. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let proof for 15 minutes.
Roll the dough segment out into a long and thin roll and place on a well-floured couche for the final proof. Repeat for all 4 dough segments.
If you don’t have a couche (I didn't either) you can make a makeshift version by folding a long sheet of aluminum foil into a trough and spray it down with some oil.
Let the dough proof again one more time covered and on the couche for 15 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Place the 2 dough segments onto each baking sheet, seam side down, and cut 3 diagonal lines in the middle of the bread with a razor.
Place a pan of steaming water on to the bottom of the oven and bake the bread for 20 minutes or until golden brown. After placing the bread into the oven, lightly spray some water onto the dough and close the oven door.
Repeat the spraying process intermittently.
Turn the bread 180 degrees and spray some more water halfway through the baking process.
Let the bread rest for at least 30 minutes before eating.
This helps with the inner texture of the bread.
