French baguettes

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 6 baguettes, you will need:

• 1 1 kg plain white flour (French Type 65)
• 2 550 ml water
• 3 18 g salt
• 4 250 g leaven
• 5 7 g yeast
• Total weight: 1,825 grams

Times:

Preparation	Resting	Cooking	Start to finish
45 min.	4 hours 5 min.	20 min.	5 hours 10 min.

Step by step recipe

• 1: In bread-making, the water temperature is always important. It's not a fixed value, but related to 3 other temperatures: 1) the temperature of your flour, 2) the room temperature in your kitchen, and 3) the basic temperature of this recipe, which is 56-60°C.
  You can calculate the temperature of the water for this recipe in one click, using this small calculator.
• 2: Put in the mixer bowl 1 kg plain white flour (French Type 65) and 550 ml water.
  Knead for 5 minutes at minimum speed, to well mix water and flour.
  Note: For the best way to knead, see: A few tips for effective kneading at home.
• 3: Cover with a plastic sheet and let stay for 1 hour.
• 4: After this time, add 18 g salt, 250 g leaven and 7 g yeast.
  Knead for about 10 minutes, ideally dough should be at the end of kneading at 73°F (23°C), or better try the window-pane test.
• 5: Put the dough, roughly shape in ball, in a plastic container, covered with a plastic sheet, and let stay for 1h30.
• 6: After this time, pour the dough on your working surface...
• 7: ...and scale pieces of 300 grams.
  Note: if you plan to make half-size baguettes, you should scale 150g pieces instead.
• 8: Shape pieces of dough in balls, like in this short video on the right.
• 9: Let stay dough lumps on your working surface for 15 minutes, covered with a plastic sheet.
• 10: From lumps, shape baguettes as shown in this video.
• 11: If you use baguettes moulds, put lumps directly in, cover with plastic sheets and let stay for 1 hour.
• 12: If you don't have moulds, put lumps on floured linen, then cover with plastic sheets and let stay for 1 hour.
• 13: Preheat your oven at 460°F (240°C), slash top of lumps...
• 14: ...and put in the oven for about 20 minutes.
  Note: As when baking any bread, you should ensure that the oven is filled with steam for the first 15 minutes of baking. This page shows you how; it really is the secret of golden-brown, crusty loaves..
• 15: You will really appreciate the very light crumb and the crunch of the crust...
• 16: ...of good French baguettes.

Remarks

You can make baguettes as for other bread: plain or with different flours, or with added seeds, grains, etc.
If you want more information about making your own bread, you can look at this dedicated page.

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