Loaf 11 – French Baguette

Posted on Jan 25, 2012 in loaves

The recipe from “Artisan Breads Every Day” for French Bread is very similar to the Ciabatta recipe, without oil or stretch and folds. I was excited to try this so I could use the baguette pans that Sarah gave me.

The end result looked nice (with some exceptions noted below), including the nice little bumps from the pan on the bottom side. The flavor was unexciting, and the crumb was very even rather than having various sized holes in it. I am disappointed, but have some ideas about what went wrong.

Lessons

• I followed the ingredients accurately, but the dough was too sticky when I put it in the fridge. It either needed more flour or a few stretch and folds to tighten it up.
• The dough rose beautifully in the fridge, it’s quite likely I over handled it during shaping, squeezing out a lot of the larger bubbles.
• My loaf pan has three slots so I cut the dough in thirds, each about 15 oz. The book recommends 10 oz. loafs. Good call on Peter’s part – the loaves rose nicely, becoming too long, and wide enough to touch each other. I snipped off the ends of two of the loaves before baking (a “baguettotomy”) so they weren’t too long. Next time I’ll do two smaller batches.
• I took off the plastic wrap after the final rise, scored the loaves and baked them. The book says to take the wrap off 10 minutes before scoring. Now I know that’s so it can form a good skin to score through. My scoring was more like a stretching tear.
• It baked in half the time the book said it would take (to an internal temp of 200°). I think the recipe’s time is for a large loaf, not baguettes.
• I don’t know why the flavor wasn’t better. It did a slow rise in the fridge for about 27 hours.