French Baguettes With Whole Wheat Recipes

AUTHENTIC FRENCH WHOLE WHEAT BAGUETTE WITH 3 INGREDIENTS (VEGAN, WFPB)

Steps:

• Put all the ingredients in a bowl and knead the dough for about 10 minutes. I use a stand mixer with a dough hook. The dough should no longer stick to the bowl, but should be slightly damp and sticky. If the dough is too dry, add a little more liquid. If it is too sticky, add a little more flour. Now let the dough stand for 90 minutes covered with a damp tea towel. Knead and fold the dough every 30 minutes (3 times in total). After each kneading, lay the dough with the fold down and cover the dough again. Now put the dough with the tea towel in the fridge and let it stand for about 12-15 hours. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it warm up to room temperature. Now divide the dough into 3-4 equal parts. Shape the dough into cylinders, roll out the dough rectangularly and start folding from the long side towards the center, you repeat until a cylinder is formed. Cover the 4 dough cylinders and let them rise for approx. 60 min. Now we shape the baguettes. To do this, I take a cylinder and start shaping on the long side of the cylinder so that you touch the countertop, you do this the entire length. Now slowly roll the baguette with the hands from the middle to the ends. It gets thinner toward the ends. Place the finished baguette on a parchment paper with the fold up. Cut the baguette with a sharp knife along the length or 3 diagonal incisions. Make a quick and firm cut. Dust the baguettes with some flour to make it more authentic. Cover the finished baguettes and let them go for 60 min. Preheat the oven to 500°F (250°C). You can now optionally use a baking stone or baking sheet big enough for the baguettes. Place a bread pan of hot water on the lowest rack. Open the oven and make sure that you don't get burned on the steam. Now slide the baguettes onto the stone or slide the baguettes onto the baking sheet with parchment paper. Close the oven and set the temperature to 475°F (240°C) and bake for 15 min. Remove the bread pan with the water and set the temperature to 450°F (220°C) and bake for another 10-15 min. Please monitor the baguettes, when they are golden brown they are ready. Let the baguettes cool on a wire rack.

BAGUETTES (WHOLE WHEAT)

Steps:

• Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water in a large bowl, let stand 5 minutes.
• Add 3 1/2 cups of the bread flour, wheat flour, semolina and salt to yeast mixture; stir with a whisk until well blended.
• Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.
• Knead until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes); add enough of remaining bread flour 1 tablespoon at a time, to prevent douogh from sticking to hands dough will feel tacky.
• Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top.
• Cover and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, 45 minutes or until doubled in size.
• (Test by pressing gently into dough. If indentation remains, the dough has risen enough.) Punch dough down, cover and let rest 5 minutes.
• Divide into thirds.
• Working with one portion at a time (cover remaining dough to prevent drying), roll each portion into a 16-inch rope on a floured surface.
• Place ropes on a large baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal.
• Cover and let rise 40 minutes or until ropes are doubled in size.
• Uncover dough.
• Cut 3 slits in top of each rope.
• Preheat oven to 425°F.
• Throw water onto floor of oven (avoiding heating element).
• Place baking sheet in oven.
• Quickly close oven door.
• Bate at 425°F for 30 minutes or until loaves are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped.
• Remove from pan, and cool on wire racks.
• Cut each loaf into 12 slices.

FRENCH BAGUETTES WITH WHOLE WHEAT

Steps:

• 1. The day before: Mix the starter ingredients till smooth. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight. Be sure to use a non-reactive bowl, such as glass or ceramic, and not plastic.
• 2. The next day, mix the starter with the remaining ingredients, leaving out 1/2 cup of the bread flour. Mix with a dough hook or by hand until dough is nice and springy, but not totally smooth. Add in the remaining half cup of flour if necessary to achieve the desired consistency. There is not a lot of kneading required for this bread.
• 3. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise for 3 hours, gently punching it down and turning it over after 1 hour and again after 2 hours. I set my bowl over a dish pan of hot tap water to get a good rising temperature.
• 4. At the end of 3 hours, punch dough down again and divide it into thirds. On an oiled surface, roll each piece into a long, thin rope.
• 5. At this point, I greased my baguette pan and sprinkled it with cornmeal. If you don't have a baguette pan, you can grease a cookie sheet and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Place the ropes of dough on the pan, about 2" apart, and cover with a clean, lint-free cloth. Let rise at room temperature until not quite doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.
• 6. About 15 minutes before end of rising time, preheat oven to 425°F. With a sharp knife or razor blade, make diagonal slashes across the loaves to let the steam escape. Spray the loaves heavily with hot water.
• 7. Bake the loaves for 22 to 28 minutes, until golden brown (mine was perfect at 25 minutes). Turn oven off, then remove loaves from pan and place them directly on oven rack. Leaving door open about two inches, allow loaves to cool completely in the oven.
• 8. The crust on these loaves turned out great - it tastes just like a real French baguette!

WHOLE GRAIN SOURDOUGH BAGUETTES

Steps:

• Levain/Starter
• Prepare your 115g of starter by mixing 25g starter with 45g water and 45g flour. This is approximately a 1:2:2 starter preparation, but other builds are fine too. Mark your jar with a rubberband and let it sit overnight or until at least doubled.
• Saltolyse
• Mix the flour, water, and salt together in a bowl. Cover and let sit about 1 hour.
• Fermentation and Gluten Development
• Add the ripe starter to the dough, stretching, folding, and gently squishing the starter into the dough.
• Cover and let the dough rest for about a half hour. Then do two rounds of coil folding or dough rolling, one lamination, and one final round of coil folding. Separate each of the four rounds of gluten development with a 20-30 minute covered rest. Here are videos showing how to coil, roll, and laminate dough.
• When the dough has expanded by about 65%, end the bulk fermentation. For the ambient temperature in my kitchen, this was five hours after adding the starter to the dough. Alternately, you can stop the bulk fermentation a smidge sooner and refrigerate the dough overnight to deepen the flavors before moving on to the next steps.
• Preshape
• Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and divide it into four pieces, about 225g each.
• Roll the pieces into four balls and cover them with a large bowl or slightly damp towel.
• Let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes.
• Shaping
• Prepare a linen couche or a couple of tea towels by rubbing flour into them and making four channels for the baguettes to lie in.
• Lightly flour your counter and flip a dough ball onto the flour. Shape your dough into four demi baguettes. You can watch a video of this technique here or follow these instructions: Stretch the dough into a small square. Fold down about an inch of the top of the square, pat the seam down, then stretch out and fold in the sides by in about an inch. Repeat until you have a tube, then roll and pinch the two edges of the tube.
• Transfer the baguettes to the channels in the couche, laying them seam-side up, and cover with the sides of the couche or a tea towel.
• Final Proof and Oven Prep
• Let the dough proof at room temperature for 30 minutes, while you prep your oven.
• Put a stone, steel, or baking sheet on your oven's middle shelf, and put an aluminum pan with a pinhole poked into it on the oven shelf under the stone or steel. This creates a drip system for steam. When making the pinhole, test over your sink that water drips through it about 1-2 drops a second.
• Preheat your oven set-up to 500°F for 30 minutes.
• Baking
• When the final proof and oven preheat are complete, flip the baguettes onto parchment paper (two per parchment works well).
• Score the baguettes 2-3 times on the diagonal as shown in this video.
• Boil a cup of water (a glass pyrex in the microwave works well).
• Using a peel or upside down baking sheet, slide the parchment sheets onto your hot stone. Immediately pour the cup of boiling water onto the aluminum tray below and close the oven door to trap the steam.
• Bake for 15 minutes (rotate 10 minutes in for even browning if needed).
• Turn off the oven, prop open the door with a wooden spoon, and leave the baguettes inside for an additional 10 minutes.
• Baguettes stale relatively quickly, so if not eaten in a day, wrap them to keep them from hardening and toast them before eating to re-crisp the crust.