Last week a group of us went over to my French neighbor’s house for a lesson in making baguettes! Alice wanted to teach us how easy they are to make ahead of the holidays so we could make them for family & friends. We took notes so we could make them on our own later and I’m sharing here (so I don’t forget, haha).
Baguettes
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cups King Arthur bread flour (any flour will work, but this is the best)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp yeast
- Warm water
Add 2.5 cups bread flour and 1/2 tsp salt in a bowl. Mix well. Mix in 1/2 tsp yeast and 300 ml (~10oz or 1 1/4 cups) warm water. Pour into bowl with flour. Mix with spoon for 15 seconds. Then mix with hands until it looks like the picture below. Don’t over mix.
Cover your dough with a cloth (like a dish towel) and let it sit for 1.5 hours. Don’t let it sit for more than 3 hours or the dough will be too full of air and burn.
After the hour and half, preheat your oven to 480 degrees. Put 1/4” water in a casserole pan and in the oven while you preheat the oven to create steam.
Put some flour on your cloth. Gently use a spatula to remove dough from bowl. Don’t change the shape of the dough, but cut it in half with a knife. Gently lift up one dough ball and gently stretch it into a longer shape. Put baguette dough on your baguette sheet. Add lil slices with knife to bring more air into baguette.
Once oven is preheated, bake at 480 degrees for 15 minutes. Loaves should be light brown and crispy on top. Makes 2 loaves.
Keep your loaves in a cloth on your counter. Don’t put in Saran wrap or foil. Bread is very fresh for 2 days. Okay for 3.
Et voila!
Results: The kitchen smelled heavenly when all those baguettes were pulled out of the oven! Michelle was nice enough to let me eat some of hers (since I came late and didn’t make any dough that night).
You can also add extra things to your baguettes like tomatoes, olives, olive oil, cheese, etc.
