As I’ve mentioned many times in previous posts, the bread I love to bake the most is the baguette. The reason is that what makes a great baguette boils down to technique. Whether you use yeast or a starter to raise the dough, the dough itself is simple and straightforward. But the dough development and shaping techniques – for lack of a better word – are unforgiving. And on top of that, I’ve found that making baguettes requires using quite a bit of intuition and feel, much more than other types of bread I bake.
With more standard loaves like rounds and ovals, I tend to focus on building dough strength during fermentation. As long as I do that, shaping is pretty easy. Baguettes, on the other hand, are a different animal altogether. Dough strength is important, but timing and observing certain telltales with the dough are critical to getting a good result. And when using a sourdough starter, the process is a little slower than with commercial yeast, so the telltales are important. I’ll discuss those below.
As for these particular baguettes, the rye flour adds incredible flavors that really enhance the taste of the bread. You get the rye grain flavor as about 12-15% of the total flour comes from the rye. But I’ve also found that a rye starter creates a nice sour tang. It’s not really strong, but it’s noticeable.
And at least in the case of my mother starter, the yeast absolutely loves rye flour. In fact, if I add my mother starter cold from fridge into the rye flour and water mix, it will peak in less than 3 hours! I don’t know what that may be due to, but there must be something in the rye that makes my yeast go wild!
Overall Formula
Flour
100.00%
Water
76.00%
Salt
2.00%
Levain
30%
Levain
Rye Flour
125g
Water @ about 100℉
125g
Mature Starter
50g
Final Dough
Bread Flour
418g
AP Flour
228g
Water @ about 95-100℉ to get a 78-82℉ dough temp
464g
Salt
15g
Levain (30% of total flour)
228g
Total Yield
4 X 40cm-335g loaves
Initial Mix. Reserve 50g of the water. We’re going to do a Tartine-style autolyse by combining the flour, levain and water. Mix well and make sure all dry ingredients are incorporated with no large lumps. Personally, I do the initial mix with a mixer with the dough hook. Let rest in a warm place for 20 to 30 minutes. We don’t want fermentation to really get going.
Incorporate the salt. Dissolve the salt into the reserved water, then mix it into the dough. You can use a mixer for this, but salt will tighten up the dough and it will quickly climb up the hook. So I just mix the salt in by hand. If you do it this way, wet your hand often. Transfer dough to another container to do your bulk fermentation (I use a 6L Cambro).
Bulk Fermentation. No time on this. You’re looking for a 30%-50% rise from the original dough mass. Using my active starter, this usually takes about 2 – 2 1/2 hours total with a dough temp of 80℉.
Folding. This only needs two folds within the first hour and a half. In each session, stretch and fold until you can pick up the entire mass. After the second fold, just let the dough ferment until you achieve 30-50% rise from the dough.
Telltale: Before you start folding, check the dough. You want to get good extensibility out of the dough. It should stretch very well but not tear. By the time bulk fermentation is complete. your dough should feel velvety smooth and luxurious.
Divide and Pre-Shape. Divide the dough into 335g pieces. You can refer to my baguette dough development process. Let rest for 20 minutes or until the dough as relaxed.
Shape. Roll pieces into logs, then transfer each to a well-floured couche.
Final Fermentation. Especially with sourdough baguettes, it is critical to leave them alone once you start final fermentation. You want the shaped dough to expand to almost double in volume or until the indentation of the poke test comes back very slowly. You’re taking the dough out to almost full fermentation.
Bake. Bake a 475℉ for 12 minutes with steam, then 425℉ for 12-15 minute or until the crust is the desired color. I prefer a slightly darker crust without getting too crunchy.
During the pandemic lockdown, I discovered just how wonderful KamutTM flour was. But now, for some reason, it has become a little scarce. So I started searching for different kinds of flour to replace the Kamut, and I discovered dark rye flour. Yeah, yeah, there are lots of folks who’ve been baking with rye for a long time, but truth be told, I kind of stayed away from it because of that traditional rye bread taste. Little did I know that that particular bitter, almost nutmeg-like taste comes from the caraway seed that’s often added to traditional rye bread dough.
Plus, up until I started baking with it, my primary experience with rye bread was that marbled rye that you get with Reuben sandwiches. But after doing a bit of research on rye flour and baking with it regularly, I was soon corrected, and I have to say that I absolutely LOVE baking with rye flour!
Part of the reason why I love it so much is that it behaves very much like Kamut flour in that doesn’t form gluten. Like Kamut, the proteins that are formed when water is added to the flour don’t at all contribute to the structure of the dough. So you either have to be super, super-gentle with the dough, or use a smaller percentage, just as I’m using with these baguettes.
But even at this lower percentage of 25% (technically 12.5% rye flour to the total flour), the flavor that the rye flour contributes is incredible. Plus, being whole-grain flour, it contributes a nice textural element that contrasts nicely with the white flour.
Overall Formula
Flour
100.00%
Water
75.00%
Salt
2.00%
Yeast
0.57%
Poolish
My advice is to make the poolish the night before you mix the dough, giving it at least 10-12 hours to ferment. Whole-grain flour has lots of great bacteria that will produce organic acids that will add to the overall flavor profile of the bread.
Baguettes a l’AnciennePoolish Baguettes w/100% Kamut PoolishSourdough BaguettesPointage en Bac BaguettesTartine-Style Double-Preferment BaguettesTraditional Poolish BaguettesBaguettes de Tradition
Click on a picture to see its recipe. The baking method described in the recipes may differ from what I discuss here. That’s because those were the ways I baked them initially. But in the last 6 months, I’ve taken to standardizing my flour blend(s) and formulas. I vary the technique to achieve different results.
I’ve been very open that my favorite bread to make is the baguette. But as you can see, I bake several different types. But with just a few minor exceptions, I bake all my baguettes pretty much the same way: 12 minutes with steam @ 475°F, 15 minutes @ 425°F. The only difference is with sourdough baguettes that go both longer on steam (20 minutes) and a little longer – 25 minutes – at 400°F for curing. As for the other types, as you can see from the pictures of some of the batches I’ve baked just in the past few months, they show different crust colors, almost as if they were baked differently. I can guarantee you that they weren’t.
And to drive the point home further, except for the Tartine baguettes, the rest of them obeyed the same, basic formula:
Flour
100.00%
Water
76.00%
Salt
2.00%
So what differs between all the different types of baguettes are the dough development and fermentation techniques employed for each different type. The most significant effect on crust color comes from fermentation. The darker crust baguettes are not the result of longer bake times, but rather the amount of sugar released into the dough due to the longer fermentation times of either the whole dough or preferment.
For instance, the Baguettes a l’Ancienne, Sourdough, Pointage en Bac baguettes all undergo very long and cold bulk fermentation times. This allows more sugar to be released into the dough than can be metabolized by the yeast. Those crusts caramelize nicely and hence have the darkest crusts. The Tartine-Style baguettes are a little lighter as less sugar is released as the combined preferments only account for 28% of the total flour. The Poolish baguettes are fairly close in color to the Tartine-style, but they’re just a bit lighter as the preferment accounts for only 25% of the total flour. And finally, the Baguettes de Tradition are the lightest as very little sugar is released into the dough. This stuff is SO very cool!
To be honest, seeing how dough can be affected by so many different variables never ceases to amaze me and keeps me completely obsessed with dough; pushing me to try different things to see their effect on the finished bread.
As far as baguettes are concerned, I used to think that a baguette was a baguette. And though intuitively and intellectually I knew there were differences, it wasn’t until I started baking different kinds that I really knew just how different they could be – even from the same formula! It’s stuff like this that keeps me baking!
When I first started making baguettes, I learned the pointage en bac method of making my baguette dough. To date, this is my most-used method for making baguettes. The slow rise significantly slows the yeast activity and allows the amylase enzymes to break down the starches in the flour and release more sugars into the dough than can be processed by the yeast that would otherwise be converted to alcohol and CO2. Plus it allows the lactobacillus and acetobacillus bacteria to release organic acids into the dough as well. With that method, I start with a dough temperature that is about 76℉-78℉, so when I finally put the dough into the fridge, fermentation has already started then gradually slows as the dough temp equalizes with the fridge temp.
But there is a bread called pain à l’ancienne whose fermentation is retarded at mixing using ice-cold water. Once mixed, the dough is then put into the fridge overnight. The dough is then removed from the fridge in the morning and allowed to come to room temp; thus, delaying fermentation and benefitting from the other microbes not having to compete with the yeast. But the two techniques differ in that with the pointage en bac method, the dough is immediately shaped out of the fridge as opposed to the pain à l’ancienne that is allowed to wake up for a period of time before shaping.
It actually makes a bit of sense to allow the dough to wake up because fermentation was delayed from the start. The cool thing is that when fermentation is allowed to proceed in earnest, the yeast have plenty of sugars on which to feed since the amylase enzymes had time to break down the starches overnight. Plus, the organic acids released into the dough will make it much more extensible. All good!
I did a riff on the pain à l’ancienne technique with my latest batch of baguettes and they turned out fabulous!
Formula
Flour
100.00%
Water
76.00%
Salt
2.00%
Yeast (instant)
0.38%
Total %
178.38%
Final Dough
Kamut Flour (sifted)
190g
AP Flour
569g
Water (35℉ – 40℉)
577g
Salt
15g
Yeast
3g
1353g 4 X ~335g loaves
As you can see above, I used a blend of sifted Kamut and AP flour. This is a 25% Kamut/75% AP blend.
Mix. Thoroughly mix ALL dry ingredients together until fully combined. For the ice water, I just filled a bowl with ice water then used a strainer when adding it to the dry ingredients. Mix until you have a shaggy mass with no large lumps. Cover the mixing bowl, then place it in the fridge for 30 minutes to maintain the dough temp. After 30 minutes, take the bowl out, then stretch and fold the dough until smooth.
Retard. Return the dough to the fridge and let it sit for at least 8 hours. There will be yeast activity during this time, but it will minimal.
Bulk Fermentation. Remove the dough from the fridge and allow it to wake up for 1-1 1/2 hr. During this time you still won’t see much expansion of the dough mass, but that’s okay. There’s actually a lot that has happened overnight. All in all, you should see about a 50% expansion of the dough from its original size.
Divide and Preshape. Divide the dough into 335g pieces. Letterfold each piece, then roll up the piece perpendicular to the seams like a jelly roll. Alternatively, you can create rounds. After preshaping, place the piece on a well-floured couche and let the pieces rest for 30 minutes. This is an important step because the dough is still cool at this point and needs time to relax. After that time, if you pick up a piece, it should feel billowy and the dough should give.
Shape. Rather than write down the process, here’s a GREAT shaping method that Martin goes into in detail.
Final Fermentation. This last part is a little tricky in that it really require a bit of feel. But because the dough started out cold, the minimum final fermentation would probably be one hour. But when I baked these today, my kitchen was 72℉ and it took a little over two hours to finish final fermentation. Use the poke test to determine readiness. With this dough, the indentation should remain, but still eventually fill in. If your poke disappears completely, the dough isn’t ready. It’s really critical that you give final fermentation plenty of time as shaping will have degassed the dough slightly. Final fermentation will allow the holes to reform.
Bake. Bake at 475℉ with steam for 12 minutes or until the crust is set and you start seeing color. Remove steam, then finish baking at 425℉ for 15-20 minutes. This bread really benefits from a full bake.
If you’re wondering what the difference between this type of baguette is and a standard baguette, look at the pictures below:
Pain à l’ancienne techniqueBaguettes de Tradition
On the left are the baguettes made using the pain à l’ancienne technique and to the right are a recent batch of Baguettes de Tradition. They were both baked in pretty much the same way, at the same temperatures. But notice how the pain à l’ancienne style baguettes are darker. This is because of the carmelization of the sugars that were released into the dough overnight. Baguettes de Tradition, on the other hand, are processed all within a few hours time; not enough time for sugars to be released.
Kamut flour has become a staple in my flour blends. It adds a nuttiness to the flavor of the bread and as it has a different kind of gluten than wheat gluten, provides a softness to the crumb that is very pleasing. You don’t get a really open crumb with Kamut since it is a whole-grain flour, but as it has under 12% protein, you’ll still get some very nice oven spring and expansion.
For baguettes, my flour blend is as follows: 50% AP Flour, 25% Bread Flour, and 25% Kamut. I use half of the Kamut (unsifted) to make a poolish and I sift the other half for the final dough. Let’s get to the recipe!
Formula
Flour
100.00%
Water
75.00%
Salt
2.00%
Yeast
0.38%
Total %
177.38%
Poolish
Kamut Flour (unsifted)
105g
Water
105g
Yeast @ 0.3%
0.31g
Note: This is more than what’s needed just to make sure there’s enough.
Final Dough
Kamut
95g
Bread Flour
191g
AP Flour
381g
Water @ 95°-100°F
477g
Salt
15g
Yeast (instant)
3g
Poolish @ 25% of Total Flour
191g
Total Yield
1353 4 X 335g loaves
Total Flour
763
Total Water
572
Make the Poolish. Combine the ingredients and mix well, then cover and set aside, until poolish about doubles. It’ll be ready when it passes the float test. This can take up to 6 hours on cool days. With a Kamut poolish, you won’t see a lot of bubbles on top, but you will see lots of bubbles on the sides and bottom of your container.
You can also make the poolish the day before and stick it in the fridge. This will allow the organic acids to really develop. Not only will you get lots of flavor from this, but it will also add extensibility to the dough.
Mix. In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (yes, even the yeast and salt) and mix well until everything is nicely distributed. Add all but about 50g of water and make a shaggy mass that has no dry ingredients. Cover and rest for 15 minutes, add the reserved water, and work it into the mass. Once all the reserved water has been incorporated, mix until you have no large lumps in the dough.
Bulk Fermentation. About 1 1/2 – 2 hours. Look for about 50-75% expansion (not doubling)
Folding. Fold the dough twice within the first hour.
Divide and Preshape. Scale-out 335g pieces. Shape either into taut balls or roll into jelly rolls, then set aside on a well-floured couche. Rest for 20 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 500°F
Shape and Final Fermentation. Shape into baguettes and place onto a well-floured couche. Check the loaves at 45 minutes. When you poke test, the hole should fill in slowly.
Bake. Bake with steam at 460°F for 12 minutes. Remove the steaming container, and reduce oven temp to 400°F. Bake for 15-20 minutes to harden the crust and bake out most of the water from the crumb.
Last night, my wife told she was going to be attending a potluck dinner party this evening and asked me if I could bake something for her to bring. Of course, any excuse to bake bread is just fine by me so I told her I’d make baguettes. I was going to make my standard pointage en bac baguettes where I mix everything together then cold retard the bulk fermentation but decided instead to make poolish baguettes.
But I didn’t want to do my standard poolish baguettes where the poolish flour was only 25% of the total flour. I wanted to challenge myself a little. Then I remembered the white bread with poolish recipe from Ken Forkish’ Flour Water Salt Yeast book that uses 50% of the total flour for the poolish! That’s a challenging dough because it is SO easy to get the poolish wrong; that is, over-ferment it, as it calls for an overnight ferment at room temp. And as ambient temperatures vary wildly, I’ve had some real poolish fails in the past.
But luckily the weather is turning cooler and Ken’s requirement of a 65°-70°F temp is now possible. In fact, the temp in my house dropped even below 65°F overnight, so when I woke up this morning to check the poolish, it wasn’t yet ready. Whew! I could catch it at its peak!
To be honest, I hadn’t made baguettes with this dough yet. But at 75% hydration, I had a feeling this would be perfect dough for making baguettes! I wasn’t wrong. They turned out beautifully, with a crisp, golden crust, and a light, airy, and buttery crumb! Here’s the recipe!
Overall Formula
Flour
100.00%
Water
75.00%
Salt
2.00%
Yeast
0.43%
Poolish
Bread Flour 25% (96g) AP Flour 75% (286g)
382g
Preferment Water
382g
Yeast Weight
0.3g
As I always recommend, make a little more poolish than you need because you will lose some weight due to processing and evaporation. In this case, I’d do 400g flour water each.
Final Dough
Bread Flour 25% (96g) AP Flour 75% (286g)
382g
Water (~100°F)
191g
Salt
15g
Yeast
3g
Preferment
763g
Total Yield
1353g 4 X 335g, 60cm loaves 6 X 225g, 40cm loaves
Make the Poolish. The night before you bake, make the poolish and place it in a cool place where you can maintain about 65°-70°F. At that temp, it’ll take about 10-12 hours to be ready. Just like with a levain, the poolish will be ready when it passes the float test. Visually the poolish should be a bit more than doubled, its top mottled with bubbles, and the top surface slightly domed.
Mix. Thoroughly mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Pour the water around the edges of the poolish to help release it from its container. The poolish will then slip right out of its container. Add the poolish to the dry ingredients then mix thoroughly until you form a shaggy mass with no dry ingredients remaining.
Bulk Fermentation. 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours depending on ambient temp. My kitchen was pretty cool this morning, and even though I put the dough in my oven with the light on and door slightly cracked, it still took 2 1/2 hours. Bulk fermentation is done when the dough has expanded 50%-75% its original size.
Ken Forkish has his dough go out to 2 1/2 to three times volume. But he has a VERY short final fermentation at 30 minutes. I prefer to take the dough only as far as 50% and having a longer final fermentation to let the dough recover from shaping.
Folding. Fold three times in the first hour after mixing at 20-minute intervals.
Divide and Preshape. Pour the dough onto a lightly floured surface, then gently tug it into a nice, even rectangle. Divide the dough into four equal pieces. For this recipe, scale each piece to 335g for 60cm loaves. Alternatively, you can make six 40cm loaves. Scale those out to 225g. If you have any leftover dough, just cut it into pieces and distribute to the pieces. Preshape the loaves into small logs by letter folding them, then rolling them up like a jelly roll. Rest the logs seam-side-up on a well-floured couche for 20-30 minutes or until the dough has relaxed.
Shape. Shape each piece into a baguette, then place each shaped loaf onto a well-floured couche for final fermentation.
Final Fermenation. 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hour, depending on ambient temp. As I mentioned above, my kitchen temp this morning was pretty cool, and it took and hour and a half for the loaves to be ready to bake. The loaves will be ready when you do the finger dent test and the hole fills in very slowly.
Bake. Bake at 480°F with steam for 15 minutes. Remove steaming container, reduce oven temp to 425°F, then bake another 15-20 minutes or until the crust becomes a deep, golden-brown. These really benefit from a full bake!
I’m surprised I haven’t posted a recipe for my poolish baguettes after all this time! I suppose I’ve been making pointage en bac baguettes for so long I completely forgot about these. But this evening after dinner I thought about what I’d like to bake and it occurred to me that I hadn’t made poolish baguettes in a long time. So I prepared a poolish for a nice 10-12 hour ferment. I can’t wait to bake them tomorrow morning!
What’s so special about using a poolish? The standard answer is that it adds flavor as the long fermentation time of 6-18 hours allows longer enzymatic activity adding to the complexity of the flavors of the dough. Plus, with the very small amount of yeast used, the bacteria have some time to do their thing and release organic acids into the dough. That adds flavor, but the acid also helps in making the dough more extensible. Cool stuff!
With these baguettes, the flour of the poolish represents 25% of the total flour of the recipe. Or put in simpler terms, the poolish weight is 50% of the total flour.
Overall Formula
Flour
100.00%
Water
75.00%
Salt
2.00%
Yeast
0.43%
Poolish
AP Flour
200g
Water
200g
Yeast
0.2g
Final Dough
Flour – You can use different flour blends. It doesn’t have to be only bread and AP flour.
571g
Water
381g
Salt
15g
Yeast
1g (cold ferment) 3g (room temp)
Preferment
381g
Total Yield
1353g 4 X 335g 55-60cm loaves 6 X 225g 40cm loaves
Optimal Dough Temp
78°-80°F
Make the Poolish. Though the recipe only calls for 381g of poolish, I recommend making 400g, as there will always be some loss in the process. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, cover with plastic and let sit overnight at least 6-8 hours. The poolish will be ready when it’s nicely bubbled on top and passes the float test (it could be doubled, but don’t necessarily rely on that). Note that in cooler weather, the poolish will take longer to mature, sometimes up to 18 hours.
Mix. Mix all the ingredients together to form a shaggy mass.
Bulk Fermentation. 1 1/2 to 2 hours or 6-18 hours in the fridge. Bulk fermentation is finished when the dough has expanded about 50%.
***If you want to do a long, cold bulk fermentation, I recommend using no more than 1 gram of yeast. Technically, you could forego the yeast altogether as the poolish will be full of yeast.***
Folding. Whether doing a cold bulk fermentation or not, stretch and fold the dough every 20 minutes in the first hour. By the third fold, the dough should be smooth and luxurious and will be highly extensible.
Divide and Pre-Shape. Divide the dough into 4 pieces at 335g or 6 pieces at 225g. Once divided, letter fold each piece by stretching one side, then folding it to the center, then stretching the other side and folding it over the body of the piece. Then roll the piece up like a jelly roll perpendicular to the folds, seal the seam, then place the piece seam-side-up on a well-floured couche.
At this point, it’s probably a good idea to preheat your oven to 475°F.
Final Fermentation: Depending on the ambient temp of your kitchen, final fermentation can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. To determine when the loaves are ready for the oven, poke a floured or wet finger about a half to three-quarters of an inch into a loaf, then pull your finger back quickly. Observe the rate at which the indentation comes back. If it doesn’t come back at all, pop the loaves into the oven immediately – you’re extremely close to over-fermenting the dough. If it comes back quickly, and almost fills the indentation back up, give it a bit more time. If it comes back quickly, but immediately slows down, then you’re ready to bake!
Score. See below…
Make sure your cuts overlap 1/3 of the previous cut!
The important thing to note with scoring (and unfortunately Chef Markus doesn’t mention this) is that you have to make sure that the angle of your blade is extremely shallow (almost flat) because you want to create a flap. Also, your cut doesn’t have to be deep – no more than 1/2 inch. So, as the chef says, your cuts need to be as parallel as possible down the loaf, and your blade angle needs to be as shallow as possible to create a flap.
Bake. Transfer the loaves to a transfer board and score (see below). Bake at 475ºF with steam for 12-15 minutes or until the loaves start taking on color. Vent the steam and remove your steaming container, then bake for 12-15 minutes at 425ºF or until the loaves turn a nice, deep, golden brown.
NOTE: The bake times are approximate! The temperatures I listed work for my home oven. They may not work for yours. The important thing to note is that within the first 10-15 minutes while the loaves are on steam, the baguettes take on just a little bit of color. If they’re golden-brown to dark in that short period of time, your oven is too hot, or you need to lower your rack a little the next bake. It takes a few times to get the sweet spot.
Alternate Baking Technique. I just started experimenting with a gentler baking temp: 400ºF. 15 minutes with steam, 20 minutes dry. This will produce a slightly thick, crunchy crust and a light, airy and creamy crumb. It’s pretty awesome! And the oven spring is pretty amazing!
This morning, I was thinking about the several different types of techniques of baguettes that I make: Pointage en Bac, Baguettes de Tradition, Poolish, Levain, Poolish, and Sourdough, Sourdough and Yeast; not to mention varying the hydration and flour blends to achieve different textures. The baguettes pictured above are Poolish and Levain baguettes ala Tartine Bread. They’re a low hydration double preferment bread that produces a crunchy crust and a chewy crumb. My Baguettes de Tradition on the other hand create a light, crispy crust with a light, airy crumb.
In any case, I realized that I use two dough development techniques depending on the type of rising agent I use: One for yeasted and another for sourdough. So I thought I’d share them here so I could just link to them in my future baguette recipes as I’m tired of duplication.
Flour Type
People ask me what flour I use for making baguettes. Traditionally, baguettes are made with white flour. But unless I’m teaching a basic technique or introducing a new recipe, I invariably use a mix of different kinds of flour to affect different flavor profiles in my bread.
Sift Your Flour!
Whether or not you use a blend of different flour, you should always sift it before mixing. This will prevent large lumps from forming during the mixing process.
Yeasted Baguette Dough Processing
Mix. Mix all the ingredients together to form a shaggy mass. With my yeasted dough baguettes, I normally don’t do an autolyse.
Bulk Fermentation. 1 1/2 to 2 hours or 6-18 hours in the fridge. Bulk fermentation is finished when the dough has expanded about 50%.
Folding. Whether doing a cold bulk fermentation or not, stretch and fold the dough every 20 minutes in the first hour. By the third fold, the dough should be smooth and luxurious and will be highly extensible.
Levain Baguettes
Whether I’m making a double-preferment (both poolish and levain) or just a straight levain dough, I use the same process for both, which leans heavily on Chad Robertson’s dough development technique.
Initial Mix. Reserve 50g of the water and set it aside. In a large bowl, dissolve the preferments(s) into the remaining water to create a slurry. Add the slurry to the flour and mix until no dry ingredients are left and you’ve formed a shaggy mass. Cover and allow to rest 30-60 minutes.
Final Mix/Bassinage. Sprinkle the salt over the dough, then add the reserved water to the bowl. Work the salt and water thoroughly into the dough until all the water is absorbed and you can no longer feel any grittiness from the salt.
Bulk Fermentation. 3-4 hours @ room temp. Bulk fermentation is complete when the dough has expanded about 25%-30% in volume.
Folding. Fold up to 6 times every 30 minutes for 3 hours. That said, really feel the dough and check its extensibility before each folding session. This folding schedule is based on the Tartine method which calls for 6 folds over 3 hours. However, I’ve rarely gone past 4 folding sessions with the flour blends I use – they get strong real fast, even if I’m handling them gently!
Once you’ve built up dough strength, you can either proceed to shaping or pop the dough into the fridge for further flavor development from 8-18 hours.
Both Yeasted and Levain Baguettes
Divide and Pre-Shape. All the baguette recipes I post here either make 4 X 335g baguettes or 6 X 220g baguettes. Whichever you choose, divide the dough into pieces of that weight. Once divided, letter fold each piece by stretching one side, then folding it to the center, then stretch the other side and fold it over the body of the piece. Then roll the piece up like a jelly roll perpendicular to the folds, seal the seam, then place the piece seam-side-up on a well-floured couche.
No matter the shaping technique you use, bear in mind that shaping a baguette is not just rolling the dough into a long, skinny log. The first part of getting it into a cylindrical shape builds skin tension prior to rolling it out. This is absolutely critical to achieve ears on your cuts when you score! I will submit that this particular step is the most important step of shaping.
Final Fermentation: Depending on the ambient temp of your kitchen, final fermentation can take anywhere from 30 minutes for yeasted baguettes to 2 hours for levain baguettes. In either case, to determine when the loaves are ready for the oven, poke a floured or wet finger about a half to three-quarters of an inch into a loaf, then pull your finger back quickly. Observe the rate at which the indentation comes back. If it doesn’t come back at all, pop the loaves into the oven immediately – you’re extremely close to over-fermenting the dough. If it comes back quickly, and almost fills the indentation back up, give it a bit more time. If it comes back quickly, but immediately slows down, then you’re ready to bake!
Scoring. Scoring should be done in the middle third of the loaf, using fairly straight lines that overlap each other by about a third. The lame or scoring blade should be at an extreme angle to create a flap which will in turn bake into an ear as seen in the picture below.
Don’t cut across the loaf! This will only create diagonal slashes!
Though Chef Markus mentions overlapping the scores, he doesn’t discuss why you need to do it. If you don’t overlap the scores, your baguettes will indeed open at the scoring sites, but they’ll come out as bulges and remain narrow where the cuts didn’t overlap, so the sides of your baguettes will be wavy, not straight.
Baking. Bake at 475ºF with steam for 12-15 minutes or until the loaves start taking on color. Vent the steam and remove your steaming container, then bake for 12-15 minutes at 425ºF or until the loaves turn a nice, deep, golden-brown.
Alternative Baking Method. Bake at 400ºF for 20 minutes with steam. Remove the steaming container, then finish baking at 425ºF for 25-30 minutes. I know it sounds backward, but it actually works great!
As is our habit after we dine in a particular town, my wife and I ended up perusing a book store where I, of course, sought out the bread books. I ran across this nice book called, “Boulangerie at Home,” and immediately thought to myself, There’s got to be a baguette recipe in there… I wasn’t wrong.
As for the book, it was beautifully laid out with lots of pictures, but though the title implied it was written for home bakers and perhaps even beginners, it’s a bit more advanced than that. I’ve been baking a long time, so I can look at a recipe and work out the baker’s math pretty much in my head. But these aren’t recipes that a newbie could do with ease.
But despite that, I found the baguette recipe and I snapped a picture of it. Then when I got home I started working through the baker’s percentages. The basic formula is below:
Overall Formula
AP Flour (King Arthur or Bob’s Red Mill) or T65* flour
100.00%
Water
71.43%
Salt
2.00%
Yeast – Instant**
0.25%
*T65 flour is flour with a protein content of 12%-13.5%. You could use King Arthur or Bob’s Red Mill bread flour for this, but I myself prefer King Arthur AP Flour at 11.7% protein content. The author calls for the use of high-gluten flour, but T65 is not THAT high. To me, high-gluten flour has protein over 15% (check out Janie’s Mill High-Protein flour – it’s expensive but wonderful). **The recipe from the book calls for fresh yeast, and if you have some, use 0.7%. For this recipe that would be about 6-7 grams of fresh yeast
Levain
The author called this “liquid starter,” but that just means it’s a 100%+ hydration starter. In this case, it’s a 100% hydration starter.
Preferment Flour % of Total Flour
4.80%
Hydration %
100%
Preferment Flour Weight
37g
Preferment Water
37g
Preferment Required for Recipe
75g
Final Dough
Flour
742g
Water (lukewarm)
519g
Salt
16g
Yeast
2g
Preferment
75g
Total Yield
4 X 335g loaves 6 X 222-225g loaves 1353g total
Optimal Dough Temp
78°-80°F
For dough development, I prefer my own method. The one in the book wasn’t bad, but I’ve been making baguettes for a long time, and the method I’ve developed works for me, so that’s what I’ll share here.
Note that this employs a hybrid rising method that uses both a levain and some yeast to rise the dough. The levain adds flavor and contributes a bit to the rising, whereas the yeast does the heavy lifting. You could use the levain exclusively, but then bulk fermentation will go on for much longer, and I suggest taking a Tartine approach and fold the dough every half-hour for 3 hours. Like any sourdough, depending on the ambient temp of your kitchen, bulk fermentation at room temp could take 6-8 hours.
Make the levain. If you have a mature starter already, take 20-30 grams of it then mix it with 100g of flour and 100g of water, essentially making a 1:5:5 (1-part starter, 5-parts flour, 5-parts water) ratio levain. The levain will be ready when it passes the float test. You’re not going to do several builds with this as you want to use a relatively young starter to limit the sourness of the bread.
Initial Mix/Autolyse. Reserve 50 grams of the water, then dissolve the starter in the remaining water. Add this mixture to all of the flour and mix until no dry ingredients are left. You’ll form a shaggy mass. Let this rest (autolyse) for 30-45 minutes. This will get the natural yeasts going.
Final Mix. Sprinkle the salt and the yeast over the dough, add the reserved water, then work them into the dough until thoroughly combined. The dough will still be a little shaggy, but considerably smoother than the initial mix.
Bulk Fermentation. 2-5 hours at room temp (depending on the ambient temp of your kitchen) or cold ferment (39°F to 42°F) for 6-12 hours following folding. If you decide to do a cold bulk fermentation, use half the yeast. Bulk fermentation is finished when the dough has risen about 50% (don’t let bulk fermentation go much further than this).
Folding. In the first hour of bulk fermentation, fold the dough 3 times at 20-minute intervals. After the third fold, let your dough rest and check its expansion. As I mentioned above, you only want the dough to expand about 50%.
Divide and Preshape. Pour out your dough onto a lightly floured surface. Gently work it into a rectangle, then divide it into 4 X 335g pieces. With each piece, letter fold the left and right sides of the piece (stretch out a side then fold it over the body of the piece, then jelly-roll the piece over the seams. Place each piece seam-side-up on a well-floured couche, the let them rest for 20-30 minutes (or just a little more) depending on how tight you rolled each piece. You want the dough to be nice and relaxed. You may see a little rise out of the pieces during this time.
Shape. Shape the rested logs into baguettes, then place the shaped loaves on the couche for final fermentation.
Final Fermenation. 1-1 1/2 hour or until the loaves have puffed up to about 75-85% – just under doubled.
Bake. Transfer the loaves to a loading board, score them, then bake at 475°F for 12 minutes with steam. Remove the steaming container, turn the oven down to 425°F, then bake for another 12-15 minutes or until the crust is deep, golden-brown. This bread really benefits from a full bake.
I read some reviews of the book online and there were lots of people who wrinkled their noses at the use of commercial yeast in the recipe. The plain fact of the matter is that there are numerous ways to leaven bread. For me, as long as you’re not using chemical additives to leaven dough, you’re golden. But to eschew a technique just because it’s not sourdough, to me at least, lends itself to elitism. There’s more to bread than sourdough, folks…
The same goes for those who won’t bake bread that has a hydration rate of less than 75%. Even Jeffrey Hamelman shakes his head at that in his book Bread, calling it a shame that people cut themselves off from learning different techniques and methods because of this. I get it, though. The thinking is that higher hydration makes it easier to form holes in the dough. And for the most part, that’s true. But a lot ALSO has to do with how you handle the dough.
For instance, look at the picture to the left of the baguettes I made from the Tartine Bread book by Chad Robertson. What a crumb! Really open with lots of holes. Guess what? The dough that came from was 64% hydration! It was my gentle handling of the dough and its thorough development that allowed that to happen, not the hydration.
I have to admit that I was a little incredulous myself when I worked out the formula. But after having made these several times now, I love the technique!
Yesterday, I wrote a post saying that I had some issues with the Tartine Bread baguette recipe, especially with the yield, which was much more than the two or three baguettes that the recipe said it would produce. It was more like seven or eight baguettes. Not a bad thing, but the inconsistency kind of bugged me. I was also a little dubious about the hydration being only 64% and that the poolish used a seemingly large amount of yeast for such a small poolish amount.
But despite my issues, these baguettes totally intrigued me because Chad Robertson employed both a levain AND a poolish. And unlike most poolish baguette recipes that add a little yeast to the final dough, the rising potential with both types of preferments completely eliminates the need to use any extra commercial yeast other than what goes into the poolish!
Using two preferments was all I needed to know to want to make these baguettes. Chad’s reasoning was that they’d contribute tons of flavor to the bread – they do – but also give the dough lots of extensibility and a longer shelf-life (and I could attest to that because my pure sourdough baguettes will last a week).
But I didn’t want to make as much dough as the recipe in the book yields, so I had to scale it down. To scale it down I had to get the overall formula, then figure out my ingredient weights from that. I shared all this in my previous post, but I’ll put it down here now:
Overall Formula
Flour
100.00%
Water
64.00%
Salt
1.70%
Levain
In Tartine Bread, Chad Robertson says to use a tablespoon of mature starter – it’ll be somewhere around 30-40g of mature starter.
Mature Starter
30-40g
AP Flour
150g ~14.25% of total flour
Water
150g
Poolish
The book says to use 3 grams of yeast for 200 grams of flour and water each. Even if he meant fresh yeast, that’s an awful lot for such a small amount of flour (instant yeast weight would be 1.2g – that’s an insane amount). It’s not necessarily wrong, but the poolish will mature much faster than 3 hours with that amount of yeast and the aim is to get both preferments to peak near the same time.
AP Flour
150g ~14.25% of total flour
Water
150g
Instant Yeast
0.4g
Optimal Fermentation Temp.
78°-80°F
Poolish should develop in a warm environment to make the 3-hour schedule.
Final Dough
Bread Flour
170g
AP Flour
402g
Water
286g
Salt
14g
Poolish
229g
Levain
229g
Total yield
1330g 4 X 330g 60cm loaves 6 X 220g 40 cm loaves
Optimal dough temp
78°-82°F
Yield is just a little more than 1300g which is the target to account for loss due to evaporation or processing (dough sticking to stuff).
Note the relatively high dough temperature of 78°-82°F. This is consistent with Chad Robertson’s method of a warm bulk ferment. You can achieve this by placing your bulk fermentation container in a cold oven with the light on. The light bulb will provide enough heat to maintain that temperature range. But keep an eye on the temp. You don’t want it to get too warm. Propping the door open with a dish towel or oven mitt will help control the temperature.
This is a fairly straightforward formula. BTW, in case you’re interested, both the Poolish and Levain flour contribute 14.25% each to the total flour. So if you want to scale this up, you can use that percentage to determine how much flour you’ll need for both. Without further ado, let’s get into the dough development!
Make the Preferments
One thing to note is that both preferments should be made from predominantly AP flour. The reason for this is that whole grain flours will have much more fermentation activity.
Build the Levain
For the levain, take about 30-40 grams of mature starter and mix it with 150g each of flour and water. Your starter should have enough activity where the levain will be ready in three to four hours. Or if you have a regular schedule, try to coincide the peak of the levain with the peak of the poolish.
Poolish
With the poolish, thoroughly mix all ingredients together. Set aside in a warm place to promote yeast activity. Poolish will be ready when it is heavily bubbled on the top.
Both preferments should pass the float test to ensure optimum activity.
Initial Mix/Fermentolyse. Set aside 50 grams of water. Measure out what you need from both preferments and place in a mixing bowl. Liquify the preferments with the rest of the water, then sift all the flour and add to the liquid. Mix well until there are no dry ingredients and no large lumps in the mix. It’ll be shaggy. Cover and rest for 30-60 minutes.
If you’ve made baguettes previously, you will notice how stiff the dough is. Don’t be alarmed and add more water! The fermentation action of the starters will soften and aerate the dough. Also, note that this is not a true autolyse as the preferments are included. But it does help to hydrate the flour!
Final Mix/Bassinage. Sprinkle the salt all over the dough mass, then add the remaining 50 grams of water. Note that for this small amount of dough, I just mix it by hand, squeezing the salt and water into the dough. Mix until all the water has been incorporated and you don’t feel any salt crystals when you squeeze the dough.
You could use a stand mixer for all the mixing. But if you do, mix only on the lowest setting! I’ve found that with baguettes, you actually don’t want to develop the gluten too much in the mixing stage. You’ll do all that through the folds.
Bassinage Explained
Bassinage is a term you’ll occasionally hear from bakers from time to time. The literal translation of the word is “bathe.” From the perspective of dough development bassinage is the process of folding reserved water into an already mixed dough; basically bathing the mixed dough. You hold back some water (typically 5%-10%), then mix the dough with the remaining water to start the gluten formation. At a later time, you add in the reserved water.
The idea behind it is actually kind of ingenious. The thinking is that the initial mix will get gluten formation started. Then when the reserved water is added, though some water will obviously combine with the remaining flour, other water molecules will get trapped in the gluten matrix, thus forming little pockets of water, which in turn will help in the formation of a more open crumb.
Given that, especially with a moderately stiff dough like the Tartine baguettes, bassinage conceivably will help with creating an open crumb as the trapped water molecules will form steam bubbles during baking.
Bulk Fermentation. 3-4 hours. As with Chad’s basic country loaf, you’re looking for about 25-30% dough expansion. Even though it was pretty warm in my kitchen, I let the bulk fermentation go for about 4 hours.
Folding. Fold every 30 minutes within the first three hours for a total of 6 folds. Truth be told, I got to the fourth fold and the dough had plenty of strength, forming a nice windowpane. As with any kind of bread, you should never be too parochial about the folding suggested in a recipe. Once you’ve developed enough strength, stop folding. Continuing will just degas the dough.
To be honest, having made these a few times now, I’m not convinced the dough needs this many folds. The hydration is so low that the gluten bonds form quickly. I’ve never gone past four folds. The bulk fermentation does take four to five hours though. With that in mind, I’d suggest doing four folds every 45 minutes instead of six every 30 as is written in the book. But this also depends on your flour. When I use my Azure Standard Bread Flour, two folds is all I need.
Divide and Preshape. Gently turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and tug it into a rough rectangle, then scale out four 330g pieces for 60cm baguettes, or six 220g pieces for 40cm baguettes. With each piece, letter-fold the dough in an east-west direction, then roll it up like a jelly roll and seal the seam and ends. Take care not to roll too tightly. Add just a little tension! Place seam-side-up on a well-floured couche. Rest for 30-45 minutes depending on how tightly you rolled the pieces. With this low-hydration dough, you need the dough to be well-relaxed.
Shape. I always use Master Chef Markus Farbinger’s baguette shaping technique. But if you have a shaping method already, feel free to use it. One thing that Chef Farbinger doesn’t mention in shaping is that while rolling, your fingertips and the heels of your hands should have contact with your board as you roll the dough out, forming a natural cup. To lengthen the log, you simply flatten your hands a bit – not completely – and the dough will push out to the sides.
Final Fermentation. Up to 3 hours. Yes, you read that correctly. Remember, this is a stiff dough, and after shaping, you want to give it plenty of time to relax. My dough was ready in about an hour and a half. It was a warm afternoon when I baked, and I didn’t want to run the risk of over-fermenting the loaves. In hindsight, I could’ve let it go out for about two hours. To tell if the loaves are ready to bake, if you do the poke test, the surface should give easily. And once you press a little deeper, the interior should have a little more tension, but it should give as well. Once you remove your finger, observe how the dough springs back. It should spring back slowly.
I can’t stress enough how important this last fermentation step is! This step will make or break the bake – even more so than the bulk fermentation because that rest period will allow the bubbles to re-form, which is crucial to achieving an open crumb. Remember, this is a stiff dough at 64% hydration compared to the standard hydration of 75%. And though the acid in the preferments will aid in the extensibility of the dough, it still needs time to develop the bubbles. So, once you’ve shaped, give this dough time to expand.
Bake. During the last hour of final fermentation, warm up your oven to 500°F. I use a stone to bake, but you can bake on a sheet or even a dedicated baguette pan. Use lots of steam! When I bake baguettes, I use both a broiler pan that I put hot water into, plus two loaf pans that have well-soaked terry-cloth towels in them to provide a steamy environment (NOTE: Your oven should be steamy when you place the baguettes in it). These are in the oven for about 10-16 minutes before I pop the loaves in (allowing my oven to come back to temperature). Quickly place your loaves in the oven, then immediately turn it down to 475°F. Bake for 12-15 minutes on steam or until the crust just starts getting color. Remove the steaming containers, turn down the oven to 425°F, then bake for another 12-15 minutes until the loaves turn a deep golden brown.
Cool on rack. You can eat these warm!
Notes
The crumb, while open, is very much like a sourdough crumb. It’s tender, but a lot chewier than the baguettes I normally make. I realize that that could be a function of the flour I used. The next time I make these, I will use all AP flour – most probably Central Milling flour as it is only 10.7% protein. This should lend itself to a much lighter crumb texture.
While I appreciate the romanticism of baking on a stone, I always use parchment paper on my transfer board to get my loaves into the oven. Especially with baguettes, since I load them into the oven along their long sides, I’ve had too many mishaps where the loaves roll off my board! So, I use parchment paper. When I remove the steaming containers, I also remove the parchment paper from underneath the loaves.
The loaves could’ve benefited from a longer final fermentation. As you can see in the pictures, they turned out fine, but I think I could’ve had them even puffier had I let the final fermentation go longer. That said, I will have to monitor their progress carefully if I use low-protein flour.
Once the final fermentation is complete, I cannot stress enough that you handle the shaped loaves as gently as possible.
I must admit that I’m still a little bugged by the yield in the original recipe and the recommendation to break up the dough into 2 or 3 pieces. But despite that, I will relegate that to copy-editing oversight.
When you see the Real Bread loaf mark, it indicates that this recipe produces bread with no artificial additives and is leavened either by a natural starter or commercial yeast.
The Dawg House! 