A Bread a Day Week, Day One - Baguette

I bake bread most days. I've got so used to it that it it has become a bit run of the mill.  So for this week I'm going track my progress day by day. Today it's basic "French Bread"  Ingredients: flour, water, white flour and salt.  Any other ingredients and it's not French bread, as enshrined in French law.  BUT you can add a bit of dough from the previous day's dough.  Doing this lifts this bread to a new height.  Try it!

Tools of the trade:  Baguette tray, loaf tin and bread machine bread pan.  Here's the contents turned out:

.... and shaped

... then baked.

The crust is "Frenched" by spraying with water at intervals during baking at a high temperature.


Wonderful cotton wool texture with a crunchy crust.  Due to the lack of any fat this bread stales in one day. Hence the requirement to make this bread fresh each day.

For sticklers the ingredients are

400 ml Water
600g White Bread Flour
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Yeast
Don't forget that old dough addition.

Method:

Knead ingredients for 10 to 15 mins (or use a bread machine)
Leave to rest in a warm place for 90mins
Punch down  (knead again for 5 mins)
Shape
Leave to rise for a half hour
Then preheat the oven to it's highest temperature
Spray/slather the loaf with water (and place a pan of water in the bottom of the oven too).
Slash with a sharp knife,  if you feel so inclined.
Bake - turning the oven down to gas mark 5 after 15 mins.
15 mins later remove and cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy - you will!