First try at Ficelles

Profile picture for user scottfsmith
scottfsmith on 7 Dec 2008 at 17:44

The wonderful pictures in dmsnyders recent bog post -- http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/9839/ficelles-made-anis-bouabsa039s-baguette-formula -- inspired me to try it out.  I did a room-temperature ferment with less yeast (100 grains of active dry yeast) for 24 hrs but otherwise did pretty much the same.   I got everything to work except the scoring which I still can't figure out how to do on such wet dough.

Scott

 

Thanks Eli.  Yes I proofed on a couche for 45 minutes as per the recipe.  It was very easy to do it that way even though I had never tried it before.  My peel is not long enough for these loaves so I transferred them from the couche to parchment after rising and cooked them on the parchment.

The family loved these, I now have only have half a loaf left of four I had three hours ago.  I have been doing whole grains only up to now but I can see the seductive power of white flour in how these guys got inhaled!  I am going to try some part white/part whole wheat next.

Scott

 

If the proof is in the eating, your ficelles are proven. ;-) My dough was not as slack as I expected it to be, presumably because of the flour I used. If you want your dough drier, use less water next time. Of course, there is a trade off with the wonderful open crumb you got. Did you look at the photos of Bouabsa's own baguettes that Flo Makanai took at his bakery? Look here: http://aulevain.canalblog.com/archives/2008/08/13/index.html David.

Thanks for the link.  The lower pictures on that page have more wet dough like I had but the Bouabsa baguettes at the top appear to be drier like yours (based on what is visible of the scoring).  I was low on white flour so I used a mix of flours including 1/4th Italian pizza flour which needs much less water.  Now that I know the dough texture I will aim for a touch drier next time.

Scott

 

Just curious, what is a ficelle? I tried doing an image search on Google, but I had to quickly abort. The first image to show up had nothing to do with French Bread, and has no place on a work or family computer (you have been warned)!

Anyway, is a ficelle simply a very tiny baguette? I'm having trouble judging scale in the picture this post.

Thanks.

Eric

 

Toast

LindyD on 10 Mar 2012 at 16:32

Not sure why you are using Sir Lancelot flour for ficelles, as it is a very strong flour.  Makes fantastic bagels, though.

You might like the results better with KAF all purpose.

BTW, welcome to TFL.