Cinco de Baguette

[bill_schubert]

Never one to be topical I'm cooking some French baguettes for Cinco de Mayo.  Actually I didn't even really notice the day.  Not drinking changes the holiday focus.  We had Mexican food last night, some pork enchiladas I made that came out pretty good.  

I've been obsessing over having my bread fall apart.  Actually only one loaf really didn't work at all.  The second one came out marginally OK.  But as I have with baking since I first took it up, when I have a questionable outcome I fall back to the simplest bread, the one I learned on.  When I first started out I'd use use a big wooden bowl and just plop the mound of flour in it, drop in the yeast and salt and make a little hole in the center.  I'd dribble some water in the hole and start stirring with my finger adding a bit more as the first was incorporated and onward until it was a ball, then knead for five minutes or so.  It is by far the best way to feel how gluten works.  I'm old and lazy now and use my 60 year old Kitchenaid to do the work for me.  But I've got the ball of dough.  Flour and salt and yeast and water.  Could not be any simpler.  It is in for its first rise.  It will take about 3 hours for that rise.  Deflate, divide into baguettes and another couple of hours.  Then bake and butter and gorge.  

Lump of dough

Comments

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

I'll try to find this (again), but someone on LJ (I'm pretty sure) had posted a link to a Youtube vid on sourdough and it was fascinating, but what struck me was how often the "baguette" shape is favored.
And in Mexico, no less.
Where the "baguette" has been popular for a long, long time. Sourdough starter, and yeast if I don't mis-recollect. The small bit of sourdough and long, long rises produce this lovely, rather complex bread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzj0RgC0W4E

O.K., my recall's...not what it could be wished to be.
"Birotte," from the name of "Camile Pirotte."

I can say, though, with certainty that this was the youtube that finally convinced me to simply go ahead and buy a tradiitonal baker's couche.

...sorry. Still too little sleep and my head's muzzy as a result.

[taz-39.livejournal.com]

That's a nice ball o' dough!!