The best baguette is the one you make yourself

0

By Claire Saffitz, The New York Times

I know what many of you are going to say when I suggest making baguettes at home: “Why?”

I hear you. Really. If you happen to live near a top-notch bread bakery, or if you just don’t enjoy time in the kitchen, it may not be worth the effort. But I know many others — those who, like me, find project baking an exciting and productive way to spend part of a weekend — will be amazed at how fun and rewarding the process can be.

Among technical breads, baguettes are well suited for home baking because they’re typically made with commercial yeast rather than sourdough starter. This means there’s no maintaining a starter and feeding it in advance before you can start. In fact, the entire ingredient list couldn’t be simpler: flour, water, yeast, salt.

With so few ingredients, a successful baguette, with a thin, ultra-crisp crust and holey, creamy-tasting interior, hinges on flour selection. You want a flour that will facilitate enough gluten development to trap gas produced by the yeast to create interior holes of varying sizes, but not so much that the dough has a hard time extending into its hallmark long, thin shape. This means using flour with a 10% to 12% protein content (check the side of the bag for this information). At 11.7%, King Arthur all-purpose flour is a good, widely available choice, and it contains a little bit of barley malt, which enhances fermentation and flavor.

Because the final dough should be strong but not too strong, the mixing isn’t too intense and can be done by hand. You actually want to leave the dough a little underdeveloped, meaning it won’t feel particularly smooth or elastic after mixing. A series of folds performed as the dough rises (or bulk fermentation) will encourage the gluten development. By the end, the dough will feel strong, smooth and much less sticky.

If the ingredient list and mixing are relatively straightforward, acquiring the necessary equipment to make well-formed, classic-looking baguettes is more of a challenge. Two items — a 4-by-20-inch wooden transfer peel for gently moving the delicate loaves and a 13-by-20-inch wooden board for sliding them into the oven — require a little planning. Both can be bought online from specialty baking sites, or you can visit a hardware or home improvement store and have pieces cut from 1/4-inch plywood. I opted for the second option, which set me back about $10. In place of the board, you could use a rimless baking sheet or a pizza peel, but make sure it’s at least 18 inches long and 12 inches wide to accommodate the loaves.

Also crucial are a lame and a large baking stone. A lame, a curved razor blade attached to a handle, slashes cleanly through the soft dough so it expands evenly in the oven. You can find one at well-stocked kitchen stores and online, though a utility blade from the hardware store makes a decent substitute. A baking stone radiates heat up and into the dough, helping the loaves to rise rapidly and bake to a burnished finish. You could bake the loaves on a large upside-down baking sheet, but you won’t get the same results.

Once you have all the equipment, plan your timeline. The dough rests overnight in the refrigerator, which helps improve the bread’s flavor and the quality of the crust, while also affording you some flexibility. Start by making the poolish (a type of preferment, like sourdough starter but made with store-bought yeast) in the morning on the first day, mix the dough in the evening, refrigerate it overnight and bake at your convenience the next day. The recipe makes three baguettes, but if you don’t want to bake them all at once, you can return a portion of the dough to the refrigerator and bake it later.

Handling baguette dough, which is soft and a little sticky, can be tricky. Try to use a light touch and minimal flour during shaping, and know that the first dozen or so baguettes that you make at home might not be picture-perfect. Fortunately, a wonky baguette will still taste great, and I doubt anyone will care when they tear through the crackly crust.

While this may not have persuaded many casual home cooks to try their hand at baguettes, I know there are intrepid bakers out there who are already taking out their kitchen scales. If you’re in that group, congratulations — you’re soon to be richly rewarded.

Baguettes on July 12, 2023. Four ingredients and an oven are all you need for boulangerie-style bread. Food styled by Laurie Ellen Pellicano. (Johnny Miller, The New York Times)
Baguettes on July 12, 2023. Four ingredients and an oven are all you need for boulangerie-style bread. Food styled by Laurie Ellen Pellicano. (Johnny Miller, The New York Times)

Recipe: Classic Baguettes

By Claire Saffitz

Producing a classic baguette with a thin, shattering crust and tender, slightly sweet interior at home requires both practice and a few pieces of special equipment (see Tip) — using a scale is highly recommended — but it’s an incredibly rewarding process. For the greatest flexibility, start the recipe in the morning the day before you want to bake and refrigerate the dough overnight. You can bake the loaves at any point the next day.

Yield: 3 baguettes

Total time: 1 hour, 45 minutes, plus 20 hours’ resting

Ingredients

For the Poolish:

  • 1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
  • 60 grams/7 tablespoons all-purpose flour, with 10% to 12% protein content (such as King Arthur all-purpose flour)

For the Dough:

  • 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
  • 500 grams/3 1/2 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour with 10% to 12% protein content, plus more for dusting
  • 10 grams/1 tablespoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal) or fine sea salt
  • Semolina flour, for dusting

Preparation

1. Make the poolish: The morning of the day before you plan to bake the baguettes, combine the 1/8 teaspoon yeast and 60 grams/1/4 cup water (at 75 degrees to 80 degrees) in a plastic lidded container (preferably quart-size, or anything with straight sides and a similar capacity) and stir briefly to dissolve the yeast. Add the flour and mix, scraping along the sides of the container, until thoroughly combined and you have a thick, sticky paste. Smooth the surface, cover and mark the height of the mixture on the side of the container using a tape or rubber band. Let sit at warm room temperature (preferably around 75 degrees) until it triples in volume, and the surface, which should teem with fine bubbles, is slightly domed, 6 to 7 hours (but possibly more or less depending on the ambient temperature).

Stay connected with us on social media platform for instant update click here to join our  Twitter, & Facebook

We are now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TechiUpdate) and stay updated with the latest Technology headlines.

For all the latest Food and Drinks News Click Here 

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! Rapidtelecast.com is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
Leave a comment