(Video below)
I’m not sure when or why kneading became such an insurmountable evil that people felt the need to eliminate it from their baking repertoire along with most of the decent texture in their daily bread. No-knead this and no-knead that are all the rage among food trend groupies these days and while I appreciate a good loaf of soda bread from time to time, pounding a bit of dough on the counter or letting the stand mixer do it for me a few minutes seems a tiny price to pay for decent bread. I say bring back kneading from this misguided convenience-driven trend that’s up there in the silly fad stratosphere with gluten “intolerance”, paleolithic diets, and labelling most every food we’ve ever consumed as simultaneously a superfood and what will kill you next week if you so much as sniff the air around it. Eggs, butter, fat, and salt in moderation won’t kill you. Eating a steady diet of crap convenience food will.
Enter the bane of artisan bakers everywhere, the Megamarket. Those giant operations get plenty of things right. I’m sure people would protest in the streets if they couldn’t get their tomatoes year round or find discount butter regularly. But they also get lots of things wrong when the economies of scale that make them function run headlong into age-old processes that don’t take kindly to accountant scrutiny. Such is the case with baking where giant conglomerates destroy the market for real local bakeries while simultaneously lowering the quality expectations of the bread-eating public. What that in-store corporate bakery can’t afford is time and with things like decent bread, that’s one ingredient on which you can’t skimp if you want flavour and texture.
Many consumers these days simply don’t understand that just because a bread is shaped like a classic style doesn’t mean it will ~ taste ~ like the genuine article. Some places have even gotten to the tipping point where people don’t remember what real bread is supposed to taste like thanks to the proliferation of mass-market knockoffs. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the French national icon, the baguette. If you shop at your local boulangerie on Rue Saint Amand run by an ancient Frenchman, please feel free to continue to do so with my blessing. If you buy fake baguettes at discount mart and think you have any hope of making great sandwiches on them, shame on you.
Baguettes are easy to make at home and require none of the fidgety details that I suspect have been dispensed by bakers anxious to keep their jobs over the years. They also need none of the extra devices or gizmos used by the professional bakeries who are cranking out hundreds of loaves a day. You can manage half a dozen at home without any such accoutrements although my standing advice that all ovens should have thick kiln stones parked in them twenty-four hours a day for even heat still stands.
Before you try to wave the “but I don’t have time to bake” flag at me or start to moan about “it’s just as cheap at the store”, remember that flour and water is a tiny fraction of the cost of the plastic bag they wrap around the grocery-store rubbish and if you can’t find thirty minutes every third day for one of the most basic joys of life, you need a much bigger rethink than in just the good bread department. If you’re only lacking the skills to bake bread, I’m fairly certain I’m the 20,239,257th person to post these simple instructions out on the information superhighway so you have no excuses there.
To make them even easier, I prefer to form demi-baguettes, i.e. “half” baguettes. They’re easier to handle, easier to rise, and fit into home ovens better. Sandwich-sized offers the perfect balance of crust and chew whether you’re making a bacon and tomato with Dijion mustard, the famous Vietnamese bahn-mi topped with coriander leaf, hot peppers, and pickled veg, or my all time favourite picnic sandwich fare of sun-dried tomato in oil and fresh smoked mozzarella held together by the best baguette. That last one actually gets better if you wrap it tightly and allow it to sit a few hours on your way to the park but none of them are worth making if you don’t put the effort into getting good bread.
You can tell from the ingredient list baguettes are simplicity in a loaf and take only a modest amount of practice. Yes, I said practice. Your first attempts will be comical but after only a few more you’ll never go back to the fake shaped bread of the convenience market.
Demi-Baguettes at Home
If your kitchen is as cold as mine some winter mornings, take the time to both bloom your yeast as well as set up a slightly warmed oven as a proofing space. In summer, you won’t need to bother with either step.
500 grams strong flour (aka “bread” or “high-gluten” flour) + more for dusting
1 teaspoon salt
370 ml water @ roughly 49C (120F), i.e. warm not hot
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons yeast, fresh or “instant” rise
cornmeal for dusting (optional)
olive or vegetable oil for forming
Yield: Six half-baguettes roughly ten inches long each
Place the flour and salt in an upright mixer fitted with a dough hook or other large sturdy bowl if kneading by hand. On cold mornings, stir the sugar and yeast into the water until dissolved and allow to sit in a warm place to bloom, about five minutes. On warm days all but the cornmeal and oil can be added to the mixer at once.
Machine knead for a full eight minutes on medium speed. For manual kneading, stir the dough with a heavy spoon and then turn out onto a lightly floured surface to knead for 10 – 15 minutes. The final aim is for a very smooth yet sticky dough ball. Place in a lightly oiled bowl to rise in a warm place * until doubled in size, about two hours.
* On cold winter mornings, use a closed oven that has been warmed slightly and then turned off as a proofing space.
Divide the dough into six equal portions and form each into a tight ball. Place on a well floured board to prevent spread but avoid working excess flour into the dough itself. A mix of cornmeal and flour can be used if preferred. Cover and allow to double in size again, roughly ninety minutes.
Prepare two uncoated 18″ x 12″ (“half-sheet”) baking pans by dusting with more flour and optional cornmeal. With a few drops of olive or vegetable oil spread on a work surface, punch down each dough round and form a thin circle the diameter of the desired baguette length. Roll each circle into a log pinching the seam closed and tapering the ends slightly. Place seam-side down onto the prepared baking trays leaving ample room for rising between each of three loaves per pan. Do not use additional flour on the work surface for this step. Allow to rise a final time until doubled in size.
Preheat your oven to 260C (500F) for a full twenty minutes then reduce the temperature to 245C (475F).
Mist the loaves with a very fine spray of water and make 3 – 4 relief cuts in the top of each bun with a very sharp razor blade. Place in the oven with either a few ice cubes or 1/2 cup of cold water thrown on the bottom of the oven deck just before quickly closing the oven door. Bake for 18 – 24 minutes without opening the oven in the interim until golden brown over the entire surface and sides of each baguette or about 94C (200F) internal temperature.
Allow to cool on a wire rack completely before cutting or tearing in a sandwich making frenzy. Butter and honey is just as good too with your morning cup of French roast.
