FCS Episode 22| Make A Great Baguette At Home

Jacob,

Are you using 16″ baguette molds in the video? I’ve done this twice now and it seems that my baguettes are not as fat as they should be. I’m wondering if I am making the loaves too long.

Also, my loaves look pretty uniform until I put them on the baguette mold after the final rest. Then then look like they came out of a play-dough machine ran by a monkey. Can I put my bread on the baguette mold to do the pre-shape proof as well as the final proof?

Lastly, is there any way to (practically) practice slashing the baguette loaf? I had it all planned in my head how it should look — but my single edge razor sort of dragged through the loaf instead of slashing it. Results poor. 20 hours of prep time to lead up to the slash and I blow it!

Or, can I store the dough for a couple – three days?

Thanks Jacob. I am also Maveric2009 on Twitter, so thank you for the answer about the bagguette pans as well. The pans you suggested, see below, are 15″, but I got them anyway. However, even though the price is $9.99, there was a whopping $10+ shipping charge on them. I contacted the vendor and got them from its site (www.bakedeco.com) for $7.95, but the cheapest shipping was still $9+. I e-mailed and they are going to ship them via USPS to me for $5.98.

Man, I must be motivated to make these baguettes.

@Homecook, the search you refer to still doesn’t result in the 14″ dual furrow pans. I just can’t find them anywhere, but I think the 15″ ones are close.

http://www.amazon.com/Baguette-Perforated-Non-Stick-Aluminum-furrows/dp/B0015QPYQ8/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1262813666&sr=8-5

@Ric,
Ah, I didn’t read closely enough to see you were looking for 14″ pans. I have a 16″ pan for 3 loaves and it fits into a 2″ hotel pan just fine. 9$ is pretty cheap, I think I paid about 30$ at SLT.

Good luck and have fun~

Jacob to Troy: The crust and crumb are much more important then the shape. I’ve had a couple people complain that these molds are hard to find. My local kitchen store stalks them so I never ran into this problem. I’m going to do some research and see if I can find a good online resource.

Starkman: Stalks, eh! “Sloooowly I crept, foot by foot, inch by inch, when suddenly, the mold saw me and gasped, “Ruuuuun!” ”

Ha!

Starkman

Well… I tried to make the baguettes yesterday and started them Saturday night. On Sunday morning, the dough ball had not raised. The yeast was fresh and doesn’t expire until 2011.
They never rose after wards through all the steps.
They came out dense but had great flavor and beautiful crunchy crust.
I don’t know what I could have done differently.

Surprisingly, I had the same yeast Jacob mentioned, Red Star Active Dry, expires Feb. 2011. I’ve never made bread where I didn’t bloom the yeast first, not that I’ve made a lot of bread. I’ve never put dough in the refrigerator to rest over night and that’s where I didn’t get any rise from the dough. So the house temp would be immaterial I would think.

Well… the yeast doesn’t appear to have been bad. I made a different bread to test it and it rose. I’m using the little 7g 3 pack so I doubt one of three was the only good one.
I tried a second batch but it didn’t rise either. I’m putting this in a stainless bowl on the bottom shelf the first time but moved it to middle shelf for the second batch but it didn’t make a difference.
I mixed this in my KA to the time’s Jacob put forth but I don’t have a clue what I’m doing wrong.
In either case, the crust and flavor are coming out wonderful but I feel way too dense given I’m not getting that initial first good rise.
From something as simple as flour, water, salt and yeast, it’s quite the challenge. Back to the drawing board.