Peter Reinhart’s French Bread

When I first got interested in making bread, I found baguettes to be the most intimidating. How can I get irregular holes in the crumb? How can I get regularly spaced slash patterns? How can I get a golden crackly crust?

It took more than a few tries to make passable baguettes with this recipe from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. The shaping of the baguettes proved to be the most difficult step and required a lot of practice and several attempts at misshapen, albeit delicious, loaves.

makes 3 baguettes

For the pre-ferment (pâte fermentée):

2 1/4 cups (10 ounces) unbleached bread flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (7 ounces) water, at room temperature

Notes:

• Reinhart suggests half all-purpose and half bread flour, but I like the extra chewiness from using 100% bread flour (King Arthur Bread Flour).
• The suggested amount of water is 6 to 7 ounces and I went with the higher amount initially. Since I used 100% bread flour, the dough will be able to take more water due to the higher protein content in the flour.

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl until the dough comes together and knead until it goes from a sticky mess to a smooth ball.

Don’t worry too much about developing the gluten at this point.

Let rise in a sealed container for about 1 hour at room temperature or until it expands to 1 1/2 times its size.

Knead lightly for about a minute and return to the sealed container. Keep in the refrigerator overnight. The pre-ferment will be usable for up to 3 days, although I tend to get nervous when it’s been sitting around for more than 24 hours. Sometimes it seems like it’s about to pop out of the container and spill all over the vegetables and eggs in my refrigerator. Not that it’s ever happened before. Be sure that your container can handle a volume at least 3 times as big as the dough.

For the final dough:

All of the pâte fermentée
2 1/4 cups (10 ounces) unbleached bread flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (7 ounces) water, at room temperature

Notes:

• The new dough is identical to the pâte fermentée formula. Pre-fermenting half of the final dough is one of many techniques used to achieve a fully developed flavor.

Take your pre-fermented dough out of the refrigerator and leave it at room temperature for about 1 hour to take off the chill. It will be bubbly and may continue to rise in your container.

Cut up the pre-ferment into small pieces and mix with the second half.

Knead for about 10 minutes. I favor the kneading technique demonstrated in this video. Richard Bertinet is shown working on a sweet dough recipe but the technique also works well for our baguette dough.

I strongly encourage doing it by hand as opposed to using a KitchenAid. It’s eerily satisfying when everything starts coming together after slapping the stringy dough onto a work surface repeatedly. It’s not like I have a choice, though, since I have neither the funds nor the counter space to take the plunge.

In a lightly oiled container, ferment at room temperature for about 2 hours or until the dough doubles in size.

It’s very important to put some oil in the container so the dough doesn’t stick when extracting from the bowl later. It should come out as one well-formed blob and feel very slightly sticky to the touch. From this point on, handle the dough as gently as possible to keep the bubbles within from deflating.

Use a weighing scale and divide the dough into 3 equal pieces. It’s okay to cut off small bits of dough to evenly distribute.

The next step is arguably the most difficult. Shaping the baguettes requires a lot of practice so don’t get frustrated if you end up with lopsided loaves. It’ll taste good regardless. The shaping method I use is demonstrated in this video created by a member of The Fresh Loaf.

Proof the shaped baguettes with the seam side up at room temperature for 45 to 75 minutes or until it expands to 1 1/2 times its size. The loaves in the picture are settled in a floured linen couche, but parchment paper can be used in the same manner. This will keep the loaves from flattening out and help maintain a tubular shape.

Preheat your oven to 500°F with a steam pan, preferably cast iron, in the bottom of the oven. I have a dedicated cast iron skillet used solely for creating steam in the oven. Don’t use your well-seasoned cast iron skillet passed down from grandma. The high oven heat will ruin the seasoning you’ve been painstakingly maintaining all these years. I had to find out the hard way. If you have one of those fancy ovens with built-in steam functionality then we probably won’t get along.

Transfer the proofed baguettes onto parchment paper on the back of a sheet pan. The seams previously on top should now be on the bottom.

Score the baguettes. Imagine a line running down the top of the loaves. Using a very sharp knife or a bread slashing tool called a lamé, create incisions about half an inch deep that overlap and run almost parallel to the imaginary line running down the center of the loaves. Cuts that run from side to side will barely expand because long loaves tend to widen instead of lengthen as a result of oven spring.

Load the oven with the sheet pan or transfer the loaves onto a hot baking stone. Pour 2 cups of boiling water onto the steam pan and immediately close the oven door. Lower the oven to 450°F and bake for 10 minutes. Rotate the loaves 180 degrees and bake for another 10 to 20 minutes until the crust turns golden brown.

Place the baguettes on a cooling rack for about 1 hour. Try to keep yourself from biting the crackly ends off straight from the oven. Each baguette will tip the scales at the traditional weight of approximately 250 grams.

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