French Baguette

This is an attempt to make something resembling a classic French Baguette in my home.  These are fairly simple in terms of ingredients and technique I think but figuring out the right way to cook them to get the lovely crisp and chewy crust is a real challenge. 

I have tried making these a few times now and they've come out pretty well so far - I will likely continue to tweak the process and use this post as a record of what I've done.

Attempt #1:

I have chosen to start out with the recipe from King Author - Classic Baguettes.  With some minor adjustments.

This is a 70% hydration dough which is pretty easy to work with (hydration level is the ratio of water to flour) such that the shaping steps are pretty fun

Recipe Details:

• Preferment:
• 120 g of All Purpose Flour
• 120 g of room temperature Spring Water
• 1/8 g of Dry Instant Yeast
• Main dough:
• 420 g of Flour
• 255 g of room temperature Spring Water
• 1.5 tsp of Dry Instant Yeast
• 2 tsp of Table Salt

Process Details:

• Day 1:
• I mixed up the preferment and left it covered to ferment for 16 hours or so.  This is intended ot give the dough some extra fermented flavor as the main dough is a fairly short fermentation with a large amount of yeast

• Day 2:
• Added the main dough ingredients into the preferment and mixed until all the flour is wetted
• Covered and let the dough sit for 15 min before doing stretch and folds of the dough.  With this you pull up a side of the dough and fold it over on itself.  I did 4 of these.  It's all mixed in the container - it is best done with wet hands to minimize sticking.  It starts out pretty shaggy and then gets smoother over time

• Let it ferment for an hour and did another stretch and fold.  The dough becomes stretchier over time which you can tell from doing the stretch and fold.  The working of the dough is intended to make it stronger (although I'm not really sure that it does)
• I fermented it in the container until it had roughly doubled in size which was a few hours maybe (the temperature of the room will play a big part so I think this is a case by case variable)

• I turned the dough out onto a floured work surface and split it into 4 roughly equal pieces.  These make a loaf of the size I would consider to be the "classic" size.  Dividing into 6 equal pieces would make a "sandwich" sized loaf.  On another attempt I divided it up into 2 pieces and that was good too (although the crust to crumb ratio is better with the 4 loaves I think.
• I pre-shaped these by stretching and folding the dough balls into the middle in attempt to give the loaves some initial tension internally (plus gives an excuse to play with the nice dough a bit - it requires little flour and isn't very sticky at all).  I cover this with a towel and let relax and rise a bit while I prepare the oven.  I think you have quite a bit of flexibility at this stage where you can let them rest longer or shorter depending on when you want to bake

• I pre-heated the oven to 475 F and put in a pan of water to create a moist and steamy backing environment.  I believe this is an important step to get the nice chewy crust
• I did batches of two on each baking run.  I did the final shape on two of the loaves which involves folding them in half lengthwise and then rolling them in your hands until you get a long cylindrical piece
• Move the shaped loaves to a cookie sheet and let them do yet another rise for 30 min or so covered by another pan.  The proofing level you want can be tested by pushing a finger into the dough and then watching how the hole pushes back out.  You want it to fill back but do so "slowly"

• Once proofed I sliced the loaves to create the weak point for it to break during the rise

This is it after the 30 min rise - I considered this "proofed"

• I then put them into the oven for 10 min before opening it to turn the sheet (and let out a big wave of steam).  I gave it another 10 min before the color looked good.  I thought the bottom looked a little light so I flipped the loaves and gave them a couple more min

• Let them cool down to room temp before slicing into them

• They are chewy and crusty with a very good flavor.  I feel like I can do better with the crust though.  I plan to refine my process further and will post an Attempt #2 if/when I feel like I've improved on this writeup