m. c. de marco: The New Kitchen Cookbook

Baguette

baguettes, top view

These baguettes are a combination of the baguettes in the Artisan Bread in 5 book and the instructions on the back of my birthday baguette pan. Beware of the nasty glue on that one; you might want to buy an alternative baguette pan.

Oiling the non-stick baguette pan seems to be unnecessary.

Ingredient

Equipment

  • baguette pan
  • broiler pan

Directions

  1. Using plenty of flour, roll dough out into 1 or 2 cylinders, 2 inches in diameter.
  2. Dust the baguette pan with flour and place the proto-baguettes in there. step 1
  3. Let baguettes rest for 20 minutes while preheating the oven to 450°, with a broiler pan for steam on a lower rack.
  4. Brush baguette(s) with water and, optionally, slash them crosswise. step 2
  5. Place baguette pan in oven and pour 1 c hot water into the broiler pan. step 3
  6. Bake 25 minutes, turning the oven down to 425° if the baguettes get too brown.
  7. Cool on a rack. step 4

It’s hard to slash baguettes when they’re in the baguette pan (try lengthwise instead), or if the dough is very moist. Fortunately, Peter likes the aliens-exploded-out-of-this-loaf look.

baguettes, alien style

Variants

The book doesn’t mention any other doughs that work as baguettes, but I was able to make them with the Light Whole Wheat dough (the one with 5 ½ c. white and 1 c. whole wheat).

I assume that the Peasant Bread dough (substitute ½ c. rye for ½ c. of the whole wheat) would also work, but I haven’t tried it yet.

I have added vital wheat gluten to a fresh batch of dough on occasion to try to keep the baguette from sticking in the holes of the baguette pan. Bread-flourification of regular flour is a dark art, but I just toss in about a tablespoon for four loaves, and remove the corresponding volume (not weight) of flour. As it turned out, the only effective cure for sticking is baguette-sized slices of parchment paper, preferably removed halfway through the baking time.