Baguette
I based this recipe on Bernard Clayton’s Pain Ordinaire Careme from his New Complete Book of Breads, with some variation. It will rise best if made some high-gluten flour such as bread flour. The process is not difficult or complicated, the only key to the fluffy, high-risen loaf or stick is patience, perseverance in kneading, patience in waiting for the dough to rise and sufficiently warm temperature for the yeast to do its job.
Get:
5 cups of flour (plus more for kneading)
2 packages of dry yeast
2.5 cups of hot water
2 teaspoons of salt
MIXING THE DOUGH. Start with half of the flour, salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl, and add the hot water. Beat it with a mixer into a thin batter, like pancake batter until it smooth and bubbly. This will aerate the dough and speed up the rising.
Beat half the flour into a thin batter
Until smooth and bubbly
Gently stir in the rest of the flour, one half cup at a time, until the dough holds together into a lumpy ball but is still limp if lifted. If it’s overloaded with flour, it will become a hard ball and not rise properly.
KNEADING. Turn the rough dough over to a floured counter surface or a pastry cloth. Start kneading in a push-fold-turn motion. Sprinkle more flour if the dough is sticky – it may or may not take up as much an extra cup. Knead vigorously for 6-10 minutes. Don’t be gentle: the dough is your punching ball, and can take over all the frustrations of the workweek from you!
push...
and fold
FIRST RISING. When the ball is smooth, velvety, and elastic, put it back into the bowl, pour some olive oil or cooking oil over it and roll it over a few times so that the oil thinly covers the ball of dough. Set it aside to a warm place to rise for at least an hour.
Check for elasticity by pushing one finger into the ball
if it bounces back with only a small impression left by the finger, the kneading's done.
Before the first rising
... and after
SECOND RISING. When the dough has become triple its size, punch it down, knead it for a minute or two, and let it rise again.
After the second rising
SHAPING. Punch down the fluffy dough and turn it over from the bowl to the work surface. Cut it in as many pieces as many sticks you’d like. I made four foot-long baguettes of it. Stretch the dough balls into sticks and gently lift them over to the oiled and floured baking sheet.
Punch down the fluffy dough and divide into loaves
Shape the bread sticks
Let them rise for the third time until they double in size. Slash the top of the sticks diagonally with a sharp knife. Bake them in very hot oven (450 F) and put an empty pan at the bottom of the over filled with hot water to make the oven’s air moist for baking.
and crack open!
The most widely loved way of eating it is with butter, and a glass of wine, or milk. I learned an other tasty – and perhaps healthier – way from a Catalonian friend while I was spending my vacation in Barcelona a few years ago. (Thanks, Marcal!) Cut open a large ripe tomato and rub the inside of the bagette with juicy vegetable. Drip some olive oil on it and ready!
