These baguettes started with a poolish, a thick pancake batter like mixture of flour, water and yeast. The poolish spent the night in the refrigerator. Then whole wheat flour, bread flour, salt, yeast and water was added. Formed into a soft dough, it was allowed to ferment for two hours. After it had doubled, it was kneaded and allowed to ferment for an additional two hours and then it was formed into baguettes, which you won't be surprised were allowed to ferment for an hour. Then they were baked.
This was not my favorite loaf. I prefer the french bread recipe or the pain a l'ancienne. We had them that night with pasta and they did not fly from the table as some of the other breads have. Maybe we are breaded out. Or maybe the adults realize Thanksgiving is coming. We need to pace ourselves.
I agree on not really liking it because for a baguette it was eehhh at best. The pain is still one of my favs especially since it makes a killer pizza.
ReplyDeleteI am going to try the pizza this week. I have the portuguese sweet bread rising and I am waiting for the plumber to show up. I don't know which one will happen first.
ReplyDeleteWe really liked this one, especially hubby. I used my sourdough starter instead of poolish though and I wonder if that made a difference in the final flavor. Your baguette looks great!
ReplyDeleteI think that the sourdough would have added to the flavor, not my favorite.
ReplyDeleteYou been practicing shaping? The shape looks great.
ReplyDeleteI'm doing this on to-night and I wasn't looking forward to it. I thought having yet another baguette recipe was a bit of overkill, but Hamelman in Bread and Leader in Local Breads both have this recipe, or a variation thereof as the first recipe in their respective books.
It really wasn't my favorite, I had a cold when I made them, probably wouldn't have liked anything that came out of the oven. I never thought that I would make so many varieties of baguettes that I would have a favorite. I actually was upset about their shape because I bought a lame and forgot to slice them!
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