La baguette: premier acte

I have a bit of a bread habit. In an average week, we go through 3-5 baguettes in our house. I am also picky about said baguettes: the must have a crackly brown crust and a sourish, holey interior that looks nothing like Wonder bread. As I hail from the land of Wegmans, I grew up with easy access to 24/7, whenever-the-hell-I-felt-like-it delicious bread. Moving away from this king-of-all-grocers was a bit of a shock to my system. Even worse, although I love to cook, I have never been much of a baker. I measure more in handfuls than cups, and gauge temperature by touch and eye not numbers on a dial. Baking my own bread was surely out of the question, or so I thought.

A friend suggested King Arthur Flour's "Almost no-knead baguette" recipe a while ago. I love it. Make a batch of dough on a Friday night and it will last through the following week. The crumb is perfect and it delivers a crisp, crackly crust. Here's how I did it:

Ingredients
3 cups lukewarm water

7-8 cups King Arthur All Purpose flour (I did try it once with bread flour and did not like the results)

1.5 TBSP Kosher salt

1 TBSP Instant yeast

Method

1. Add water and yeast to a large bowl and mix well. As long as you use instant yeast, you do not have to let it sit, or add sugar to get it working. I have been using SAF Instant and it works great every time.

2. Stir in the flour and salt. Start with 7 cups of flour and add more as needed. I usually end up adding around 7.5 cups total. The dough should be sticky and wet when you are done with no dry spots left. If you add too much flour, you will not end up with the lovely, holey interior. As you can see, I am doing this by hand. You do not need a fancy-pants stand mixer with a bread hook to make this bread (but I would certainly use one if I had it!).

 

3. Throw the dough out on your lightly floured counter (or keep it in your stand mixer) and knead gently for a few minutes by pulling the far side of the dough up and over, then pushing away from you with the heel of your hand. Lovely picture, eh? I was kneading with such fury! Once this is done, form into a ball and place in a well oiled bowl. Cover with a kitchen towel and let sit in a warm, moist place for about 2 hours. For me, this happens to be the microwave, above my range, while a pot of soup is bubbling away. This is the best way it works for me... quirks of my kitchen!

 

By now the dough should be doubled in size, and it will be too dark to take any more pictures. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge. It gets along well with dark, leafy greens.Kick up your feet and have a glass of wine (do not underestimate the importance of this step!). 

 

Tomorrow: how to turn this into something special.