<< Back to Recipe index

Baguettes

The secret behind this traditional French bread is in the handling and baking as it uses soft flour, water, salt and yeast only.

There are typically two types called Baguette in Australia, one possessing a thin egg shell like crust with a light open although chewy texture (baguette) and the other fairly heavy with a thick chewy crust and crumb probably rightfully called Italian bread.

Laucke crusty premix is suitable for both products.

Ingredients (Kg)
Bakers flour 1.00
Rye Flour (optional) 0.20
Salt 0.022
Bread improver (normally) 0.012
Dry yeast 0.012
Water 0.62

Instructions
The dough should be well developed but kept on the cool side around 25-26 deg C and allowed to recover well for about 15 minutes before dividing.

After dividing, round the loaves up, cover and allow to recover for further 15 - 20 minutes. The longer the recovery, the more gas and hence more open texture.

The final moulding stage is important requiring the dough to be sheeted fairly well to produce a tight smooth skin. For the heavier types total degassing can occur but for the lighter style care must be exercised to avoid degassing but still achieve a tight outer skin. Some bakeries hand mould in stages, resting between extensions.

The shape is traditionally elongated as either sticks or continental loaves.

The best way to attain the bold shape is to place proved products directly on the precleaned oven sole and to achieve a good result, maintain a fairly firm dough.

The lighter style should be proved fairly well in a slightly moist prover and cut delicately at an angle across the product before being placed in a pre streamed oven at 200 deg C or 220 deg C in a rack oven. A clean sharp blade is required to avoid damage and excessive collapse. The steam should be retained in the oven for the duration of the bake and only released about 10 minutes prior to the end of the 40 45 minute baking cycle. Smaller baguettes will need less baking time.

The heavier style should only be given ¾ proof, cut fairly deeply on an angle across the product and then placed in a pre steamed oven at 200 deg C. The steam should be retained for about 10 -15 minutes and the oven should be allowed to drop back to about 180 deg C and the products baked for about 50 - 60 minutes or more.

For the more traditional baguette halve the yeast and bread improver and allow the dough to ferment for up to 1.5 to 2 hours. Retain some dough from the batch to include in the next days production. Over time this will develop a more acid flavour in the dough.