As a homebrewer, I’ve recently become more interested in both baking and home food fermentation. Because of this interest, I purchased up a copy of The Fermentation Kitchen by Gabe Toth and have just started reading it. Once I read through the various bread recipes in the book, I had to try them out. This is my initial attempt at making the baguettes described in the book. I scaled down the recipe as an initial test to get familiar with the recipe and the process.
For the complete recipe and process, check out the book!
Baguettes
Ingredients
- 200 g King Arthur all-purpose flour
- 150 g Water
- 4 g Sea salt
- 2 g Instant yeast
Baking Notes
Started mixing flour and water by hand around 8:00am. Water temp was 80F. Let rest for 30 minutes after initial mix, then kneaded in salt and yeast. Let dough rise for 3 hours before shaping.
Shaped the dough into two baguettes and started preheating the oven and a pizza steel to 475F at 11:45am. Baked the baguettes on a cookie sheet which was placed on top of the pizza steel.
Started baking at about 12:55pm. Baked for 12 minutes, then rotated and baked 10 more minutes before removing from oven. Placed baguettes on a cooling rack for a little over an hour before cutting off a piece to sample.
Tasting Notes
The baguettes had a hard, medium-dark brown crust. The inside was slightly chewy, but otherwise soft and moist. Cutting the bread with a serrated knife was easy. Overall, I am happy with how these turned out, and will definitely make them again. Next time, perhaps I will form these into slightly larger pieces. Maybe scale the recipe up to 275 grams or 300 grams of flour and divide into two pieces.
