Baguettes
How much fun is making your own bread…or in this case baguettes…from scratch. Now, not to worry if your first time (or two) of making a yeast based bread is less than perfect. I remember my first loaves could have been mistaken for door wedges. They smelt and tasted great but were more ‘rock like’ than I expected. However, even these little rocks were salvageable, hot from the toaster and buttered. Bread making is a really good example of perseverance and learning that sometimes you need to fail a few times before success is achieved…but the journey, and ‘less than perfect loaves’, are still well worth it.
Baguette Recipe
Special Note: Along the way, I’ve learned a lot of lessons about making bread, which is more science than art. A couple of those lessons is to make certain you are using ‘unexpired’ yeast. Yes - yeast expires and when it is expired, it won’t activate and rise the bread. The next is the temperature of the water. I first tried to do what I had seen my mom do, check the temperature of the water on her wrist. Well, my wrist is super unreliable. So, I bought a kitchen thermometer to make certain I had the ideal temperature of the liquids…too hot kills the yeast and too col won’t activate the yeast.
Ingredients:
5 - 5 1/2c flour
2 tsp salt
1 package (2 1/4 tsp) quick-rise yeast
2c lukewarm water (110 degrees F)
For glaze, 1 egg white plus pinch of salt
Instructions:
In bowl of mixer, add 4c flour, salt, yeast and water.
Stir until blended.
Knead with dough hook until the dough is elastic and pulls cleanly away from the bowl sides, about 10 minutes, adding additional flour as needed. The dough will be very soft.
Form into a ball and place in a clean bowl.\Dust lightly with flour and then cover with plastic wrap.
Let rise in a warm place until doubled, 45 - 60 minutes.
Scrape the dough onto a well floured surface. Knead for a few seconds and return to bowl.
Flour top again and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in warm place until doubled again, 20 - 30 minutes.
Line a double baguette pan with a kitchen towel and sprinkle with flour, lightly rubbing into fabric.
Turn dough out onto floured surface, press flat and cut in half. Let rest 5 minutes then shape into cylinder with rounded tapered ends. Place in towel lined baguette pan.
Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise until doubled, about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Pull pans out from under towel. Grease pan. One at a time, flip the loaves into the pans, underside up.
Brush with glaze.
using a sharp knife, cut 3 diagonal slices about 1/4” deep into top of loaves and then brush with glaze.
Bake until crusty about 20 - 25 minutes.
Remove from oven and place on wire rack for cooling.
Any leftovers…do I hear crostini??…lol!!! :).
