To put it succinctly? That has got to be a baguette with a wonderful open ear and a dark golden crust that's all cracked apart. When you cut the baguette open, you are greeted with aromas that indicate a well-fermented dough. When you pull the top off of the baguette, you are faced with a texture that is astonishingly soft and open crumbed, and it is calling for butter. It doesn't get a lot better.
When I eat them, I like to slather them with butter and stuff them with dijon mustard, real ham, or mature cheddar cheese. This is my favorite way to eat them.
This recipe calls for a pre-fermentation process that is more often known as a poolish. Don't be concerned. It's not a difficult process at all; just combine the yeast, flour, and water, then set the mixture aside to ferment overnight and for the next 12-36 hours. This is an excellent way to provide more flavor to your dough while also contributing to the formation of the structure. Skipping this step makes it much more difficult, in my view, to produce anything that even comes close to resembling a nice baguette.
It is not difficult to bake a fantastic baguette, but in order to get the finest outcome possible, some advance preparation is required. During this procedure, I make advantage of two lengthy fermentation periods or proofs. Both, in my view, are absolutely necessary in order to have the very best outcome.
Although some preparation is required, the actual time spent managing these baguettes is extremely little. You won't be let down in any way, therefore I strongly suggest that you give them a go. Keep in mind that if you need visual assistance with the various phases of baking, the video instruction that is linked on this page is available for your use.
I'm going to go over a few key aspects of the French baguette in a moment, but before I do so, I strongly urge you to read the following essay (video included). While the emphasis of this article is on sourdough, I do go into further depth on flour, moisture, and how gluten forms over time (amongst other points).
Here is the link: Exploring the World of No-Knead Sourdough Bread and Providing Solutions to Your Questions
What is the proper way to score baguettes?
When a baguette is cooked, it gives the appearance of having diagonal cuts made in the dough all the way through it. This is not the situation at all. The baguette is nearly entirely sliced along vertical lines that go down the length of the loaf.
The scoring will enable the dough to open up in a way that is within your control. This is what contributes to the incredible ear that develops throughout the baking process. If we did not score the dough, it would break apart in unpredictable ways.
Position the baguette so that it is facing away from you along its length. Picture two parallel lines with a distance of one centimeter between them going along the middle of the top of the baguette. These lines will serve as your fictitious boundaries, and any cuts you make should remain inside these lines.
A sharp knife may be used to score the dough, but a razor blade or bread lame is more effective for this task. Cut through the dough while holding the blade at a 45-degree angle and working downward (about 5mm deep). Start making the cut on the imaginary line on the right side, and then complete it on the line on the left. Repeat this process, beginning the next cut just above where the last cut came to a close. You are allowed to score the baguettes a total of four times for this size.
In this piece, I will demonstrate why the UFO baker's lame is my preferred option for precise scoring in baked goods.