Baguette tricks and techniques produced some pretty decent loaves.
We traveled to Norwich, VT a few weeks ago for the half-day “Beauty and the Baguette” class at the stste-of-the-art King Arthur Baking Education Center. We’ve taken a more intensive baguette class there in the past and mainly wanted to experience a live vs remote class after so many Zoom sessions during the pandemic. As it turned out, we learned quite a few new baguette tricks and techniques which we’ll share in this post.
The importance of calculating desired dough temperature (DDT). Yeast is happiest at 75 degrees Fahrenheit, which is probably a bit higher than your kitchen and ingredients and certainly well above the temperature of tap water. Solution: heat the water to a bit warmer than body temperature to offset the lower-than-ideal temperatures of the other ingredients. A much more exact water temperature formula is here, but you can get pretty close with the simple body temperature hack.
Kneading wet dough on the bench without flour. This is a bit show-offy, but fun to master and you will end up with a perfectly clean bench when you’re done. After your initial mixing of dough in a bowl, dump it out onto the bench and make repeated downward chops into the wet mass using a bench knife held at a slight tilt, with the knife parallel to your body and the top closer to you than the bottom of the blade. Move from front (closest to you) to back, making half a dozen chops, the flip the dough mass with the bench knife and repeat till the flour is fully incorporated into the liquid. This takes the place of autolyze but only requires a minute or so.
Then, knead the dough using this “baby animal” technique. Imagine the dough mass is a baby animal lying on its back, its left side facing you. Pick it up by its “arms” by pinching the dough between first finger and thumb, one hand on each side of the dough. Lift the dough off the bench then make a quarter-turn clockwise. Drop the bottom of the dough (the baby animal’s “feet”) onto the bench then fold over the top; repeat. At first this process will be very messy but as gluten develops it will be much smoother and the dough will develop an even vs ragged surface. If dough sticks to the bench, scrape it off with the bench knife and incorporate back into the dough mass. After 7 minutes the dough should be sufficiently developed and you can scrape it clean from the bench and transfer to the mixing bowl for proofing.
Some extra steps for consistent, well-shaped baguettes. Shaping is an ongoing problem for home bakers who don’t make enough baguettes to develop muscle memory. These little tricks should help. A/when you flatten the dough ball you have proofed onto the bench to form a baguette, pull out the corners so you have a true rectangle; this insures consistent shaping for the next step. B/make a letter fold (1/3 of the flattened dough folded down top to bottom), then turn the dough 180 degrees and repeat. Then (this is the new part) insert your left index finger into the center of the flattened dough on the right edge and fold top and bottom over it with the other hand. Repeat, moving down the entire length of the dough, then pinch the edges to form a seal. C/when rolling out the baguette to full length after B/, start with one hand in the middle and create a “dog bone” that is thinner in the center than on the ends. Then use both hands to roll out and extend the dough to the thickness of the center section.
Bakers Couche with shaped baguettes.
Additional techniques for proofing and loading baguettes. We have a very well used proofing cloth (it’s heavy linen, purchased at King Arthur years ago) that is saturated with old flour so sticking is unlikely. Position the cloth (“couche”) in a half sheet pan with its side overlapping the long edge of the pan. Sift fresh flour onto the top of this (the sifting makes sure it is evenly coated) and transfer your fully formed baguettes onto the cloth one at a time, then fold along the length of the cloth to make a ridge and load the next baguette until all are loaded, then fold over the excess cloth to cover them while they are proofing. (If you have no extra cloth because you’re making lots of baguettes, cover with kitchen towels.)
Managing seams when transferring baguettes. You want the seam side (that edge you pinched shut in your initial shaping of the baguette) facing DOWN when baking for the best oven spring. To insure this, have the seam side DOWN when you load the formed baguettes into the proofing cloth. When they are fully proofed, flip them out of the proofing cloth by rolling them onto a piece of light plywood cut a little longer and wider than your baguette, so the seam side is UP. Then flip them again onto the surface you will use for baking so the seam side is once again DOWN.
These few baguette tricks and techniques helped us make some of our best loaves ever. Hope they work for you as well.
Minita Sanghvi is a Skidmore professor who’s running for office in my town. The long hours of campaigning have kept her from cooking for her six-year old son as often as she’d like, so when she made Minita’s toor dal for him he ate four plates of it. You may do the same—it’s simple but delicious. Makes 8 servings. P.S. If you would like to know more about Minita and her campaign, here is her website
