Hello, I'm reasonably happy with my baguettes made with about a 75% hydration strong flour.
But a few things niggle me.
The baguette never have these wonderful 'ears' on them. The slashes I make form pretty patterns but not much else. I wonder why this is. I have tried slashing much deeper but it doesn't seem to have an effect.
I'm wondering if I'm slashing too late. I do it just before they go in the over after a good 2 and a half hours of proofing. I wonder if I should slash them right at the start. Would that help?
I also thy to slash at an angle rather than straight down.
I really want the slashes to create this huge volcano of erupting dough during bake but iut only seems to happen a bit.
Any help on this matter is gratefully received.
Whilst I'm here, I made these baguettes with 75% hydration dough which I stretched 4 times during a 3 hour proof. I then folded in air, rested and shaped. Thing is, I'm expecting some larger irregular holes. But these loaves came out totally regular. Not dense in any way, but a very even, regular crumb. Any tips?
Thank you.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/handbook/scoring
Paul
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
I shall look and report back
I can't say much about the rest of your ear problems, but the scoring is not being performed at the correct angle. You need to be scoring more like almost parallel (slightly offset) lines down the baguette.
The link Paul shared should help
thanks for confirming.
I can't wait to try again!
This diagram should help:
David
Great diagram.
Thank you for penning!
I'm going to have another bash doing just that.
So I tried some stuff and your responses certainly helped a little.
The loaf pictured came out fantastic with the angled slashing.
The baguettes however still leave a lot to be desired.
Here I used 75% hydration dough, stretched gently 4 times, left to prove for a couple of hours when the dough did indeed rise then baked with a little steam. So I'm confused as to why the crumb is so dense.
The dough behaves itself very nicely during stretch and prove and I was expecting this batch to come out with loads of air and holes but as you can see, that hasn't happened. Is it my shaping technique?
The baguettes are still nice and tasty and don't look too bad on the outside. But I long to get some air in there.
Any help gratefully received.
Baguettes are the simplest yet most challenging breads to make. There is no simple answer to your question. Everything matters - gluten development, optimal fermentation and proofing, gentle but firm handling when shaping, and scoring. Your photos are too small for me to diagnose the reason for your dense crumb. Certainly, you may be deflating the dough excessively during shaping.
To get an open crumb, higher hydration helps but is not actually necessary. Here is a photo of a 65% hydration baguette from a formula provided by Pat Roth back in 2011:
To quote some wise baker, "The first 10,000 baguettes are the hardest." So, it's like the New Yorker who responded to the tourist who asked "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" Practice, practice, practice.
Happy baking!
David