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My first baguettes

thaliablogs's picture
thaliablogs

My first baguettes

I've been baking sourdough for about nine months, and totally have the bug, thanks in part to all the help I've found on here. Would love some feedback on my first baguettes.

The thin ones were made from the san joaquin sourdough, and the larger ones from the tartine recipe in book one. I prefer the flavour of the san joaquin, although the crust on the tartine one was lovely. I followed both recipes precisely with no tweaks. San Joaquin was in the fridge for precisely 21 hours. 

Crumb shots!

I can see that they don't have the massive holes I thought baguettes would have. Potential issues I can see:

- My shaping. I followed a video I found on youtube on the slow cooking channel. I found the san joaquin pretty hard to handle after it had rested on the bench for an hour after an initial shaping into rounds after taking it out of the fridge. Next time I might just leave it 30 minutes, it's warm here at the moment.

- Rise time. Because I made more than I thought I had, I had to pick up the kids inthe middle of the experience, and my oven's capacity, there were very different rise times, from 30 minutes for the first batch, to 3 hours for the last batch of the tartine recipe. (book says 2-3 hrs but I know that depends on temperature). 

- Slashing. I probably should have done three rather than four, and spaced them out more. 

They proofed on linen couches, dusted with cornmeal. I rolled them gently onto a baking sheet which I put into the oven. I used a makeshift steam apparatus at the bottom of the oven, think it worked pretty well for how it felt on my face when I put the bread in and out! Steam for 15 mins and then another 12 mins to crisp up. Oven gets pretty hot, probably around 280-300 d c (thermometer is broken!). 

WOuld love any other feedback, I want to make them for a family party this weekend so want them to be good!

 

 

Comments

KathyF's picture
KathyF

I'm afraid I can't help with baguettes as I haven't really tried to make any myself, but yours looks pretty good to me! And they will get better with practice. I am sure your family will really enjoy them this weekend!

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

Hi, thalia!

I'm sure you have read that baguettes are the hardest breads to make well. Maybe you have also heard that it gets easier after the first 10, 000. I think you are off to  a great start.

The crumb you want should not have huge holes, really. The crumb should be completely aerated (no dense areas) with randomly distributed holes of varying sizes. Here's a fairly good example of what I regard as ideal:

San Joaquin Sourdough baguette crumb.

Here is a link to a little tutorial that might help you: Scoring Bread made with high-hydration dough

My favorite baguette shaping video is the one of Jeff Hamelman, found on the KAF web site. Here's a link:

         Techniques for the Professional Baker - 4 - Shaping      The baguette shaping part starts at about 2:10 minutes into the video. If you haven't done so already, do view the other videos in this series. They are pretty great.

Happy baking!

David