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Baguette Success!

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I made some French baguettes yesterday using this recipe. It's kind of a long process with a lot of steps which made me nervous but I'm really excited about the result!

Check these babies out:


   

Now all we need is some fancy cheese, good wine and the Eiffel Tower!

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 17, 2010 at 7:18 PM

    Seriously Ellen. those are some of the most beautiful baguettes I've ever seen! Rich's never turn out like that....

    ReplyDelete
  2. EllenNovember 18, 2010 at 11:49 AM

    Thanks!! There were two things (IMO) that made me successful:

    1. I used 100% white flour. On the Artisan Bread site, they definitely do mixtures of white and wheat but I wanted to give myself the best chance of success so I went with the easy to use flour.

    2. I used a Poolish (at the direction of the recipe) which, I learned, is basically just a pre-mix and pre-rise (preferment) of a portion of the ingredients that is added to the rest of the ingredients when you start. It made me feel like my rise had a head start. It also made me feel fancy and French.

    You two should try the recipe out. It took a lot of time from start to finish (maybe five or six hours, not counting the Poolish prep) but most of that was a series of 45 minute rest periods. Other than that, it was super easy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 19, 2010 at 12:04 PM

    I use to love baking fresh bread. That was before Andrea and McKenna went gluten free. Maybe they just didn't like my bread.

    Yours looks amazing. Go get that bottle of wine and enjoy it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. EllenNovember 20, 2010 at 9:07 AM

    @Jay - Rich actually told me all about your bread making - you're legendary! The bread and the wine have been devoured...time to make some more!

    ReplyDelete
  5. JonathanNovember 29, 2010 at 12:38 PM

    I also attribute the nice crusty shell to the "humidifier" that Ellen added to the oven while baking.

    http://www.artisanbreadbaking.com/breads/f_b/french21.htm

    ReplyDelete

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