The Wood-Fired Blog
Baguettes Follow Pizza
Mar 25, 2013This is becoming a good habit. Baguettes follow pizza, and this time it was particularly fun because I got to see how the Central Milling flour works in bread. You know what happens — you make 9 pizza balls, and you only make six pizzas. So you roll your extra dough into a ball, and refrigerator it overnight, and then bring it out in the morning to take off the... Read More
Making a Pretty Good Baguette with Pizza Dough
Aug 25, 2012Everybody has leftover pizza dough. Two nights ago, we had company and made flatbreads to go with steak and salads, and we ended up with two 275 gram dough balls. They weren’t anything special; just regular 65% hydration dough using Trader Joe’s general purpose flour (embarrassing, but we ran out of both Caputo and Central Milling 00), and the dough balls sat out most of the evening and developed a... Read More
My New (and very nice) Bread Peel
Jun 22, 2012I have been struggling to find a good way to load multiple baguettes into my pizza oven off and on for years. With my recent round of bread baking, my struggles have come to a head. I’ve tried the back of baking pans, short wood pizza peels designed for (that’s right) pizza, standard metal pizza placing peels, my new baguette flipping board and a homemade attempt to making a true... Read More
A Baguette Self-Critique
Jun 01, 2012I have always thought of myself as a glass half full person, so in parsing my latest baguette lessons and trials, I’m going to start with the positive. As background information, I made a standard 70% dough using TJs AP flour. On the upside: I started my dough the night before using room temperature water and an initial knead for 10 minutes on KitchenAid at 3. The dough ball was... Read More
More on Baguettes and Hydration
May 30, 2012Following up on my previous posting on why 80% hydration is just too high for a straight yeast baguette (and my plan on trying different hydration and dough preparation methods), today I ventured off and made a couple of simple baguettes with 70% hydration. My plan was really simple. I made a straight-forward, room temperature dough: 500 grams of TJs AP flour 350 grams of water 5 grams of yeast... Read More
Proper Scoring of a Baguette
May 28, 2012From Ciril Hitz, via YouTube. I learned a lot from this excellent video — including the scoring angle (within a railroad track down the center of the baguette) and that the scoring cuts should overlap by 1/3, or the baguette will bulge out where it is scored, and stay narrow where it is not scored. httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QdzHuhJ-ls Read More
Technique and a Really Good Baguette
May 26, 2012In my quest to learn to make a better baguette (dare I say a good baguette?), I have been experimenting with new techniques, reading about the science, watching videos, tuning my equipment (pizza oven, etc.) and even making equipment (my baguette flipper). I have been deconstructing the process and learning how to make beyond my initial attempts, which I would characterize as follows: 1. Mix 80% room temperature water dough... Read More
Ice Water, Yeast and Crumb
May 21, 2012This is a follow-up on my earlier posting on High Hydration Dough, where I ask (and answer) the question—”do I need to proof my yeast”?, with a clear and definitive “no”. As a little background, I mixed my flour, salt and yeast, and then added 80% ice water directly to the flour and mixed it. After a two-hour bulk fermentation, I shaped my baguettes, put then on a homemade couch... Read More
Baguette à l'ancienne
May 20, 2012From William Alexander, author of 52 Loaves. I hate to burst anyone’s fantasies, but the typical baguette in a Parisian bakery, that very symbol of French cuisine, simply isn’t very good, made quickly by machine, from pumped-up flour. If you ask for a baguette à l’ancienne, however, you might pay a little more, but get an artisan baguette, made slowly, with a wild-yeast starter. This is my own interpretation of... Read More
