Posted on by Lesley

Baking baguettes

As my baking things are still in boxes, and making sourdough without a Dutch oven, baneton and all the faffy but essential equipment seems a step too far, I’ve started experimenting with baking baguettes.

Inspired by Mairi at Highland Seedlings, who makes baguettes a few times a week, I decided to give it a go.

I’ve been using this recipe from Taste of Artisan https://tasteofartisan.com/french-baguette-recipe/ which is simple to follow and produces good results, even for a novice baguette baker like me.

The dough proves for a few hours in a warm place in a covered bowl to get the yeast active then sits overnight in the fridge for a further 12 hours of “cold proving”. There’s no kneading, just a few stretches and flips, which definitely gets my vote.

It’s a very high hydration dough, nearly 70%, so it’s wet and quite tricky to work with. Luckily there’s not much fiddling beyond shaping to do.

The crust is good and the flavour is exceptional.

I’ve even been up early to switch the oven on and shape and bake the loaves first thing so that we can enjoy them for breakfast.

I’m not sure whether that’s true love or greed, but whatever it is it means that we have warm, freshly baked bread with our coffee, which is a joy.

10 Replies to “Baking baguettes”

  3. There is nothing more life enhancing than the smell of baking bread. Baguettes are lovely, but on cold, wet days a slice of rye bread fragrant with caraway and a bowl of soup is hard a great restorative.

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