French Baguettes Recipe Demonstration – Joyofbaking.com

Recipe here: http://www.joyofbaking.com/breads/FrenchBaguetteRecipe.html

Stephanie Jaworski of Joyofbaking.com demonstrates how to make French Baguettes. Learn how to make REAL French Baguettes. This isn’t white bread shaped like a baguette, this is the real thing like you would buy in a French bakery.

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Hi I’m Stephanie Jaworski of joy baking calm today we’re going to make a French baguette and this is what it looks like as you can see it has that really nice the classic long thin shape and nice crispy crust and then inside it’s wonderfully soft and chewy and as you

Can see we’ve got the nice ears here that’s what they’re called these little rough edges which a baguette has so to make a baguette there’s a couple different ways you can do it with machine but what today we’re gonna make it just by hand is called a hand mix baguette really easy

No kneading so I mean if you’re new to making a baguette this is a good recipe to start with so in a large bowl I like one that’s pretty wide I have okay first you need a scale I’m recommending the scale like I always do but really when

You’re measuring flour you’re way more accurate if you use a scale you I’m gonna give you cups but really it’s time to buy a scale so you will need 475 grams of bread flour that’s 3 and 2/3 cups and I’m also using 65 grams 1/2 a cup of all-purpose flour you mean oh

That is plain flour and you know the bread flour is what gives us a nice soft and chewy texture and then along with that we are going to use 2 grams which is 3/4 of a teaspoon of SAF Gold instant yeast this a little different than the

Act of dry this is used by professionals and we don’t have to proof it which is really good and it’s it this is type yeast is really good when you have a long fermentation period which we do with a baguette so you know you can find

It online Amazon is where I got mine so just keep that in mind and then what we’re another ingredient you may not be familiar with is we’re going to add 3 grams which is 1 teaspoon of dry malt dye esthetic powder and what that does is yeast need sugar

To feed on and then it releases gases and gives us that wonderful flavor so the this kind of malt power powder breaks down the starch into sugar which is and this is really good again when you have a long fermentation period and it also helps with browning our baguette

Give that wonderful golden-brown color again you can get it online so let’s put that in there and then we need some salt for flavor plus it does ten salt tends to slow down the fermentation process which is really good again with this particular recipe so we’re using 10

Grams two and a half teaspoons I like to use a kosher salt so just dump that in and then we’re gonna give that I’m just using my hand you’d use a whisk mix all that in and then we need water now like I said this dough is actually we’re

Gonna do the first fermentation is three hours because we are not kneading the dough so it needs that long fermentation period and we don’t want the dough to be too warm we want it room temperature and by room temperature I mean that’s between 74 and 77 Fahrenheit which is 23

25 Celsius so we don’t our water temperature is very important so I have a formula it’s in the head note but I’ll just give you an example my room temperature is 77 degrees Fahrenheit 25 C and that means my flowers at that temperature so I need a cool temperature

Of my water actually I’m doing it at about 68 degrees 19 C so to get that you will need an insta read the mom didn’t put in there or Rick just happened to have in his tool box this infrared really fancy dance I just beam it on it like my my flower

Is 76.5 and the see that we can get a shot of that pretty cool kind of fun you just put it in check the temperature of your oven your wall whatever a lot of fun so anyways you will need 380 grams of water at your correct temperature so that will be this

Is again where grams is really good that would be one and a half cups plus one and a half tablespoons of water please get a scale so um put a you want a well in the center and we’re just going to pour our water in like so and then we’re

Just going to moisten our flour I like to use one of these just one of these plastic scrapers you could use a wooden spoon and then I’m just gonna move it around like this now we are making an authentic French baguette so I will tell you upfront there is a technique to this

And it will take some practice but this is a crap and a wonderful one and I just love the process and if we’re not making like just a white bread dough in them and then just rolling it into a log we’re not really going to you know make

It like they do in bakeries so and you know what the results are just wonderful so enjoy learning this it’s a craft I just I just find it so therapeutic and relaxing and even if it’s not perfect the results will be like I find even on

My worst day there’s my bread is still better than what I’m getting at my local grocery store so so now I’ve kind of got it moistened as much you know as I can you finding it looks like a lot of water and then it looks like I don’t have

Enough water you do so now what we’re gonna do we don’t want to knead this dough so I have this violence bench scraper metal you could just use a knife we’re not you don’t want to tear the dough so what you’re gonna do is just cut down so you could

Use a knife for this and then just lift this and stack it you don’t want to pull it so just work like this work around and this as we keep working this it’s going to moisten get all that flour moistened so as you can see here that

I’m really starting to really clean the bowl of the flour say I’m kind of dragging it up so check that in a second yeah okay so there we got it’s kind of a shaggy mess don’t worry about it and I’m just gonna check it that looks good you

Want to kind of just feel it make sure there’s no dry spots that’s look I’m happy with that okay so now what I’m gonna do so we’re done making our dough I know it doesn’t really look like a dough very good one but trust me it will let’s take

It out so I’m just going I have to wash my bowl and so I’ll do that and I’ll be right back okay so now I have my clean bowl I’m just gonna pour a little flavorless oil I’m actually using canola oil vegetable light olive oil now I’m

Just taking a paper towel and then just lightly oiling the inside we don’t want our door to stick too much and then so I’m just gonna take my dough like so and then I’m gonna flip it so that the the top of the the dough is oiled and there

That looks lumpy kind of shaggy don’t worry about it and look just for we are at 74 which is like if the low-end of our temperature which is good 74 which is what 23 see so that’s good so now I’m just going to cover it with plastic wrap

And then like I said if you don’t need your dough a lot the kind of the thing is if you knead your dough a lot you have a short fermentation period conversely if you don’t need your dough you have a long fermentation period and as we’re going to do it for three hours

And that’s gonna really develop the flavor of our baguette but every 45 minutes we will have to stretch our dough which I will show you so what you want to do is just let this sit at room temperature and I’ll see you back here in 45 minutes okay so it’s been 45

Minutes so we’re going to do what is called our first fold and you know it just is a little tip I kind of write everything down the time time I made the dough and then my folds because sometimes you can forget what time you did it so it’s good to have a little

Piece of paper and put that down so now to hold our dough what you do is take one end here just kind of stretch it gently and then fold it over onto itself turn it stretch this fold it back on itself this side and as you can see this

Is starting to smooth out this is what we want and like that and then we’re going to do is just flip it over so bottom becomes the top and that’s what is called our first fold if I kind of put my thing on there it’s up to 75 0.5

Which is wide about 24 so that’s fine because we want to keep that within that range so now I’m just going to cover and the reason we do that is to equalize the temperature of our dough that stretching helps to do that so I’m just

Gonna cover it and now we’re going to do another 45 minutes and then do what is called our second fold so we’ll see you back then so it’s been 45 minutes so we’re going to do what is called our second fold again gently pull it fold it

On a South another side and as I said this will equalize the temperature of our dough as you can see and then we’re just gonna flip it it’s getting nice and soft just how we want it so again that’s all you do cover it and we let it ferment for another 45

Minutes so now for our third and final fold now this dough looks I mean it’s nice and soft but it is sticky so that is the way it’s supposed to be so again just gently pull fold it over itself and yes again flip it and then we are going

To cover it and let it sit another 45 minutes and then we will be ready to start shaping our baguettes before we start shaping our baguettes we need to talk about our oven and one of the problems home bakers have always had to make an authentic French baguette is we

Don’t have a deck oven which is what artesian bakeries use but we can kind of simulate it and get really good results so in the oven I have actually two pizza stones I have one at the top here and I have one at the bottom

I have if you don’t have to I have done it with just the bottom one and that is what we’re going to put the baguette on and I get pretty good results some people have even just bought unglazed tiles instead of a pizza stone the problem with that is I’ve talked to

People and they said they do tend to break so just keep that in mind so um and then you have that and then you know the deck ovens in artesian bakeries what the great thing of that is when you put the baguettes in there you get this

Burst of steam and you need that so that’s what how you get that really nice hard crispy crust but we also there is a way to kind of send me like that and what I’ve done is I’ve put a cast-iron frying pan in the bottom and we’re gonna

Heat that up with the stones when we heat the oven and then what we’re gonna do is we’re going to throw in some ice cubes and that’s going to instantly hit that cast iron we’re gonna get to steam so this is kind of my setup that I have

Like I said if you only have one pizza stone you can you can do it with that so uh and the thing is we want we have to preheat our oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit which is 245 degrees Celsius and we want those stones to get up to

That temperature and that takes a while you know your your oven made beep and say it’s ready but those stones take a lot longer I find to really get that up to to temperature it takes like an hour and a half so just keep that in mind when

You’re timing and if you have a convection oven a fan oven which I do I like to turn that off I don’t like I don’t have the fan on so just keep that in mind so when we come back we will start shaping our baguettes okay so now

We’re ready to start shaping our baguettes I like to do this in two stages do a little then let it rest and then finish shaping so first thing we need to do is flour surface because this is a soft it’s a sticky dough and then what you want to do is

You want the top of the dough to be facing down on your counter like so as you can see it’s really nice and soft and then flour the top and then we’re gonna divide from the where they sit we’re gonna make three baguettes so we’re gonna divide this into thirds now

I like my scale should probably know you can eyeball this if if you don’t have a scale so I my finds both 310 grams per big a so and you know try not to tear you want to just cut down and use a knife if you don’t have one of these

Bench scrapers and just gather up the dough look and kind of go like this because you don’t want to stretch it if you’ve ever made a baguette dough like with the Machine like and knead it this dough is a little more soft than then then a machine made when you need

It but you know I think this is a great dopher if you’re just starting to make big s because you don’t have to worry about needing it and you know the window do I have that right and people get confused by that so I think this is a

Great way to start and then we move on to the other ways and see if that’s all right okay that’s right so now there’s my oven beeping so you want to kind of put it into a rectangle kind of even and then kind of Pat it down cuz you’re gonna

Have some large air bubbles and we just want to get rid of those so I’m doing it what’s in maybe six by four inches so that’s let me see well it’s 16 by 10 centimeters it’s not too critical so what we’re gonna do – it’s a little bit of technique here

We’re gonna take your hands like this and then just fold it into the center kind of seal it because we’re trying to create a little bit of tension here on our our dough and that will give us that really nice shape of a baguette that won’t spread out when it bakes so that’s

Why we’re doing and then just again just take this and fold it over and under and so that’s what you forgot and then I’m gonna put that underneath and then I’m just gonna take my palms of my hands and kind of just go like to rock it back and

Forth and we’re getting some tension there and then we’re sealing that at the bottom like so and that’s what you’re looking for not that difficult and then what we want to do is just have a board or a baking sheet really whatever you have I’m just gonna use my wooden board

Here and just put that on there like so and just do the same thing just paddocks we want to get rid of to even out you want to kind of have an even thickness of your dough plus to get rid of there’s any of the really large air bubbles but

Don’t like really don’t take out your anger and then let’s add into the center seal it and then like that and then just rock it back forth and that’s what you’re looking for and same thing with the third one okay if you have any big one just pop

Those little big air bubbles and then we have it on our board and then I’m just gonna cover with plastic wrap now I’m just gonna you know let it relax our dough relax for about a half hour and then when we come back we’ll do our

Final shaping of our big s so now we’re ready for our final shaping of our baguettes so you can see they’re nice and soft they have spread a little so what I want to do is lift them up and top goes down onto a floured counter so

Now I know in in a bakery baguettes are really long at home we are limited by the size of our oven and the size of our pizza stone so uh I’m going to make about 14 inch long baguettes that’s about 35 centimeters so what you will

Need is a cloth I’m using just a linen tea towel if you want to do like the bakeries do they have they use a cloth called a Koosh you can actually buy them online but you know a linen tea towel clean lint it out just do the same thing

And I like to lightly flour that so our dough does not stick so a little bit of technique here you know it takes practice you know you won’t get stuck down first time and don’t worry about it because it does you know it’ll still turn out fantastic it’s just something

It’s a craft something to work on it’s kind of fun so now what we’re going to do is just Pat our dough down gently kind of even get an even shape and if you have any large air bubbles we want to get rid of those now what we’re gonna

Do is fold from the top over 1/3 and you do you do this by I take my left hand and I have my thumb and I just bring kind of take the dough and lift it over my thumb and then you can either use your heel of your right hand or just

Your fingers I’m going to press down to seal so just go along pressing pressing pressing we want to see all not get some tension and just you know a lot of times I just use like so and then we flip it around and we’re going to do the

Same thing use your thumb and a third again all the way along so seal it that gets some tension gives us that a nice shape and then we’re going to take again and go all the way over to the end here and seal it again I’m just using so it’s

A third a third and a half just remember that a third turned the dough another third and then a half and I don’t you probably can’t hear but there is some air bubbles breaking and then I have it sealed as you can see that’s what we

Want and now what we’re gonna do is we want to roll it gently to about 14 inches 35 centimeters or however long you know your pizza stone is you got a bigger one you can do it longer and then just gently roll it out that’s I’m I think that’s about 14 so

What we want to do you can see there’s that seam try to get it you know Nathan shape so we want seam side up you’re putting it on the cloth kind of have and what we’re going to do is just take the cloth and then to kind of give it a

Little thing to keep its shape as because we are going to let it proof a little so just kind of like that and then we’re gonna do it again with the next one if you don’t get it the perfect first time do not worry just do it the best you can practice

Makes perfect so again third over pop those air bubbles like sitting just kind of turn it again third seal it and then a half what bit air bubbles there I’m popping and if you don’t if that’s not just kind of take your fingers and make sure it’s

Nice and sealed get the tension there of the nice shape and then just gently roll it get it as even as possible seam side up and and then just again it’s a third one so that’s our final one it’s like so and then I’m just gonna cover it and

We’re just gonna let it sit at room temperature now depending on how warm your room is mine’s at about 77 degrees Fahrenheit 25 degrees C so I’m I do about a half hour if your rooms a little cooler it could be an hour what you want is when you press your baguette pred

Gently press it it will pop up slowly so probably about a half an hour and we’ll be back and we’ll bake our baguettes so we are now ready to bake our baguettes I’m using a pizza paddle because we have to transfer the baguettes into the oven

If you don’t have one of these you could you just turn your a large baking sheet upside down and then what I did is I just spread some fine cornmeal because that way the baguettes will slide a little easier into the off of the board into the oven you can use semolina for

That so I’m just gonna rub that in okay and now we’re going to trim little tricky here transferring the baguettes to the board we want as I if you remember we have the seam side up we want now to put the seam side down on bort I’m using one of these this is

Actually just a piece of wood to transfer them you know you can use like a cutting board piece of just got a piece of plywood and a little tricky little technique I’m gonna lift this up and what we got to do is kind of flip it

Back and forth so I’m going to use kind of get my wrong side there get this under and then I’m going to flip it back and then flip it onto the board using the cloth and then you have that seam up and then transfer it seem down that’s what you’re going to do

So now what we need to do is do those this kind of characteristic slits on the top of our baguettes you want to try to keep it in that top like the third of the top of your baguette I’m using actually using a razor blade you could

Use a sharp knife some people even use scissors so what you want to do is I’m for this length of baguette I’m going to do three slashes and if you can see here there is a slight overlap that’s what you want so just kind of I think three

Is it’s kind of time and we wanted fairly deep as you can see just quick action down like I said you could use the knife for this and that looks good so we are ready to transfer these to our piece of stone in the oven and you will

Also need I have on the side you will need some ice cubes about a cup and a half of ice cubes 306 I guess that’s one 360 you’re just a bunch of ice cubes and that’s going to create that steam and we need that because we don’t want the

Crowd we want the crust to be really crisp and you need that steam rate at the beginning so let’s see if we can do this try to space can’t really see me try to space your baguettes you don’t want them too close together because otherwise the sides will be soft so

Leave a little space like so you can see that it’s low right and then I’m just going to try to do that as quickly as you can I know it’s a little difficult and we’re going to bake those at 425 minutes until we get really nice and

Golden-brown and nice and crispy if you turn one over and kind of tap it it will be Hollow I mean normally my about twenty-five minutes now if by any chance you cannot fit all three in there which sometimes happens what you can do is kind of the the unbaked baguettes while

Your first one is baking just so what you need to do is just put them on a baking sheet and put them in the fridge and then you can bake them off after your first one is done if you have that problem so 25 minutes and then we will have a beautiful baguette Okay there’s our big s aren’t they gorgeous beautiful golden brown kind of tap them a little hot they’re Hollow so that’s just what we want and you know what’s great about big ad should do a few they’re all they all look different kind of and you can

Evaluate them I you know nice ears here some maybe not and then so then next time you know whether you should cut if they’re you don’t have good ear maybe you didn’t cut deep enough or if they’re really ragged maybe you didn’t pull your ear razor or your knife fast enough

Through so it’s kind of fun to just experiment learn the craft enjoy it so now I know we’re smelling the brand it smells wonderful and who doesn’t like hot red nice warm from them but please resist it ah to get the full flavor of your baguette it has to cool to room

Temperature sorry to say that but that’s what we have to do so I’m gonna let them cool aunt like this on a wire rack it’s probably going to take you know maybe a couple hours but when we come back we will try one okay so now we’re ready to

Cut into our baguette so I like to use the serrated knife some people just like to tear off the chunk either way I don’t know whether you can hear that sound lettuce so I love that sound oh so this is the inside of our bag app

As you can see I mean it’s wonderfully soft you have the crisp outside crust the soft interior and you can see they’re fairly large air pockets in there that’s because our the way we made our dough it was very soft and gassy and that’s why you get this the holes in the

Finished product and okay you don’t need to have butter on it I like it plain but you know I like butter too it’s very good if you can if you have some pesto that’s nice on there too you can tell I had chew a lot it is soft

It’s true in that wonderful crisp outside crust you know this I like making baguettes this way I mean you can make there’s so many different ways you can use a stirrer like a foolish or a sponge but you know what to start out this is a really easy way to kind of get

Get going on making a big gets so try it and until next time I’m Stephanie Jaworski of joy baking calm