Baguettes by zerox147o

Recipe by Dane Uploaded by Drimble Wedge

Everyone loves bread. If I am working from home, or if I wake up at home on a weekend, there is a very high chance something is going in the oven that day. Sometimes I do sweet potato buns, other days I'll do a little focaccia, but most days it turns into a baguette. It is a bread with the simplest of recipes and is entirely technique/process. Personally I have settled on 68% hydration, with a +/- 1-2% compensation for humidity if it feels particularly wet or dry. The thing I'm currently playing around with is oven temperature/cooking time, heavily considering building a small brick oven in the backyard depending on how much longer I am going to live where I am now. Currently playing with 450F for about 18-20 minutes with another 2-3 minutes after applying an egg wash. Also, I didn't have time to do a poolish as I threw this dinner together day when I found out my sister was going to come over for dinner. Usually do a 30% of total flour with equal volume water/flour overnight for a poolish when I can plan ahead.

Get your bread flour, salt, yeast, and warm water together. If you're going to get into bread, grab a scale. Being able to accurately measure your flour is pretty mandatory.

Weighing out my flour. Zero the scale and add yeast. Using a fork or other little whisk like object, give the yeast a good mix so that it doesn't come into direct contact with murderous, delicious salt. Zero the scale again and add salt. Forkwhisk again for distribution. *I use 2% of both salt and yeast

Add your warm water. I find it easier to actually base my scaling off of volume of water than volume of flour. If you grab 400g or whatever of flour you're going to need to break out the calculator and check to see how to hit your % hydration, and then break out a measuring cup or bowl and weigh it out. Meanwhile you can simply remember the weight of water is roughly 125 grams per half cup and do it backwards. (1/2 cup = 125ml = 125 grams)

I still will zero the scale when adding it and make sure that it comes out right.

Everyone say hi to Stanley, my stand mixer. He is going to be doing the heavy lifting as this is a double batch (well, a 1.5 batch-- but I'd rather make 2 medium loaves than 1 super large one, why that is later!).

Anyway, you're going to want to set this thing to its lowest setting with the paddle attachment on until everything combines. Once everything has begun to resemble a loose dough let it rest for 5-10 minutes before swapping out for a lightly oiled dough hook attachment.