Ultimate Sourdough Baguettes Recipes

ULTIMATE SOURDOUGH BAGUETTES

Steps:

• In a large bowl combine water, starter, and 3 c flour, mixing until smooth.
• Stir in the salt, sugar, yeast, and gluten, then add 2 more cups flour.
• Stir until starts to pull away from sides of bowl, add only enough flour to make a slack, sticky dough.
• Knead 5 minutes and turn into an oiled bowl.
• Let rise 1-1/2 to 2 hours.
• Deflate and divide into 6 thin or 3 thick baguettes or several rolls.
• Place at least 4 inches apart from each other.
• Baguettes should be aprox. 18 inches long.
• Place a lightly greased piece of plastic wrap on top and let rise 1 hour.
• Brush with egg wash and sprinkle w/ desired topping.
• Spray w/ olive oil.
• Bake in 450°F oven for 20 min, remove from oven, place rack at top of oven.
• Put bread back in and broil till deep golden brown in color, watching closely!
• Remove and serve.

SOURDOUGH BAGUETTES

Steps:

• Feed sourdough starter and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours.
• Dissolve yeast in warm water in a large bowl. Add 4 cups all-purpose flour, sourdough starter, sugar, and salt. Cover and let rise until double in size, about 1 hour.
• Mix remaining 1 cup of flour with baking soda in another bowl. Stir mixture into dough slowly, adding just enough to make dough stiff. Knead dough, adding flour mixture as needed, until smooth and shiny. Shape into two baguettes and place on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal. Let dough rise again until double in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
• Brush tops of baguettes with cold water and make several gentle slashes along the tops of the loaves.
• Place a small, oven-safe, pan of water on the bottom rack of the oven. Bake baguettes in the preheated oven until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush each with melted butter. Continue baking until crisp, 3 to 5 minutes more.

SIMPLE HOMESTYLE SOURDOUGH BAGUETTES

Steps:

• Combine the sourdough with the water and allow to sit until the sourdough relaxes and begins to dissolve, about 20 minutes. Beat in the whole-wheat flour and one cup of the bread flour, cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise until very bubbly and light, six to eight hours depending on the warmth of the room.
• Beat in the salt and another cup of flour, again cover and let rise until double in size, five to seven hours.
• Transfer the mixture to a kneading bowl or food processor fitted with a eel blade and knead in the remaining flour, a third of a cup at a time, until the dough is smooth, shiny and elastic. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.
• Sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal. Divide the dough in half and roll each half into a thin snake about one-and-a-half inches in diameter. Place the snakes, well separated, on the baking sheet, cover lightly with a dampened tea towel or plastic wrap and allow to rise until double in size, about one to one-and-a-half hours.
• Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Make several shallow diagonal slashes across the loaves with a razor blade and put the sheet in the oven. Being careful not to get burned by the steam, throw about a quarter cup of water onto the oven floor and shut the oven at once.
• Bake the bread for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the baguettes are crusty and well browned. Cool on wire racks.

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.