Baguettes 
since nothing says I love you like a freshly-baked baguette
Baguettes
Ingredients
- 500 grams AP flour See #1 below
- 400 grams warm water (90F/32C) See #2 below
- 10 grams salt approx 2 tsp
- 3 grams instant yeast aprox 1 tsp See #3 below
- 25 grams honey approx 1 tbsp, and see #4 below
Instructions
- Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, cover, let rest for 15 minutes.
- Stretch and fold the dough: grab a handfull, pull as far as it will go, then fold it back over onto the dough to keep it roughly ball-shaped, turn the dough 90 degrees. Do this 4 times, then then flip it over. Gently pressing down and rolling it around, form a smooth ball. Cover and let it rest 30 minutes. Do this a total of 3 times. See #5 below
- See #6 below.
- Cover the bowl with clingwrap and place in the fridge for 12 hours. The dough should have doubled in volume. If not, take it out and let it rest in a warm place until itt has doubled in size, maybe 1-2 hours. Oven with the light on is perfect for this.
- See #7 below if using a baking stone/steel.
- Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces, genthly degass, and shape into rectangles and let rest for 45 minutes.
- Form the baguette: Fold/roll the about 1/4 of the long edge back about 1" toward the middle of the rectangle with all your fingers on both hands, and seal the seam with your fingers. Be careful to not squeeze the gas out of the dough, but make sure to pop any large bubbles, and but you want a smooth seal. Do this two more times and you should have a cylinder with the seam on the bottom.
- Stretch the cylinder to the desired length by rolling it with your hands.
- Cover the cylinders with flour, and place on a baker's couche, and let proof until the dough springs back very slowly - approx 30-60 minutes. See #8 since you don't have one.
- If not using a stone, preheat the oven to 500F, and place a bread pan filled with hot water in the lower rack. See #6 for the reasons why.
- Using a lame, razor blade, or a very sharp and thin knife, make diagonal cuts along the top every 1.5" . If the dough slides around when you do this, hold the dough at the top, and make one long cut along the middle.
- Bake on parchment paper, directly on the stone, or use a perforated silicone baguette mold on a baking sheet (this is what I'm doing)
- Carefully open the oven door and keep your face away from the door while doing this. You don't want a bast of hot steam to the face.
- Put the baguettes in the oven.
- Using a spray bottle, spray some water on the sides of the oven to create some steam.
- Reduce the temperature to 475F and bake for 15 minutes.
- Carefully open the oven door (no steam to the face!), remove the water pan and towel, rotate the baguettes, and lower the temp to 450F.
- Bake for another 12-15 minutes, until deep golden brown.
Notes
- Approx 3 cups, might be as much as 3.5 for very loosely-packed flour.
- Approx 1.75 cups. The dough needs to be soft, and not sticky.
- If you only have active yeast, activate it in 5 tbsp of warm water with the sugar, and reduce the water in the dough part by 1/4 cup. After the yeast is frothy, mix all the ingredients together and continue.
- You can substitute 2 tbsp sugar. Honey tends to make baked goods brown a bit more quickly, and the rule of thumb is to raise the temp by 25F if you're using sugar instead of honey, I'd ignore it in this case since you're pulling the finished baguettes out based on colour anyways. Also, purists reject the idea of using honey or sweeteners at all, but they're all wrong. There. I said it.
- Stretch and fold is exactly what it sounds like. Don't overthink it. Grab a section of dough from the top of the ball, pull it away, fold it back over the ball and press it into place. Flip it over. That's it. It seems like a meaningless step, but it isn't. It's magic.
- All the previous dough work should be done in a warm room, or let the dough rest in a slightly warm area, like your oven with the light on. This will help activate the yeast. The dough is ready to refrigerate if you see tiny blisters and the dough has a slight smell of sour milk.
- Preheat the oven to 500F with the stone in the middle rack. Also place a small bread pan with hot water on the lower rack beside a rolled-up kitchen towel. The water will release steam during the baking to help the baguettes rise better and prevent the surface from hardening. The formed baguettes will be put on a piece of parchment paper, seam-side down. You can use a pizza shovel, or a cookie sheet (the kind with a flat side) or an inverted baking sheet to slide the parchment paper onto the stone. Purists insist on baking directly on the stone, but I advise against it unless you're experienced with using a stone.
- What the heck is a baker's couche? I thought Vlahos didn't do gadgets! Just use some parchment paper folded into an accordion pleat, and put something heavy on both sides to keep the shape - we want to prevent the dough from losing its shape.
There are over versions that are quicker (5-hours or so), and don’t involve refrigeration. I might do a side-by-each comparison but that definately wouldn’t be a live thing, and we all know how much I hate and avoid doing video editing.
If I do go on a baguette making spree and find an even more easierer way that yields similar results, I’ll update all y’all.