Made these a few days ago with a "No Knead" method. Very easy and the dough makes enough for 4 count 'em 4 delicious baguettes. Best part of it you don't have to make all the baguettes at once. You can make one or all four at a time for your convenience. Option to make them the initial day of the mixture and up to 10 days later. A very flexible recipe. The dough really stays nice for that long, as a matter of fact the bread's flavour changes and enriches with age.
BTW you can also make Boule (regular round loaves of bread) Great Pizza dough or flatbread from this recipe too.
Basic No Knead Recipe:
Ingredients:
6 1/2 cups of unbleached all purpose or bread flour.
1 1/2 tablespoons of instant or bread machine yeast.
1 1/2 tablespoons of table salt or kosher salt.
3 cups of lukewarm water about 100 F/ 38 C (No hotter or you will kill the yeast).
Directions:
Put dry ingredients in a large plastic container. I use a Tupperware clone container and just DO NOT fully shut it during rise and storage, this is a live dough that requires breathing. Make sure it is well mixed a whisk works great here. You will not be mixing it much with the liquids so it is important to make sure the yeast is distributed.
Add your warm water and stir until just moistened. Now Beat with a large spoon ( wooden) about forty strokes scraping the bottom flour up and getting the sides Incorporated. The dough will form a lumpy sticky mass.
Rise: cover your bowl with plastic wrap or loosely put on top of Tupperware clone type container for about two hours at room temperature in a draft free place (I'm not sure why draft free, but practically every bread recipe since time began says "draft free" so I decided there must be a good reason and chose to comply on this small matter.) The dough will take on a sponge like appearance something like this:
DO NOT PUNCH DOWN THIS DOUGH!
To make your Baguette:
The dough is now ready to be used or put in the fridge until you bake. Up to 9 more days. You have enough dough for 4 baguettes. I tend to make at least two at a time.
First I flour my hands then I grab my kitchen scissors, ( you might want to flour your scissor blades two) yes I said scissors and I snip the dough into half and then those halves into haves. I have 4 approx the same sized hunks of very sticky dough.
Working the dough as little as possible (and adding flour as necessary) form each piece into a cigar shape around 14 inches long. Don't stress. This is pretty easy, the dough is not stiff at all, I tend to just hold it up and allow it to stretch it's self a bit, then put it on the floured surface and gently pull/stretch it the rest of the way to it's desired length. Coat with flour while working (this is really sticky stuff) outside will become soft and smooth like a baby's bottom. No sticky areas should be felt. Pinch each end to a point. Not to worry if they are not the same they seem to all bake and taste wonderful regardless.
As I finish shaping each baguette I used to place them on a cookie sheet or piece of parchment paper with cornmeal scattered on it. Not anymore my hubby made me this baguettte shaper/riser/baker out of sheet metal, it looks like a W with a flat bottom, so now I place the parchment paper on the it, the cornmeal and I let them rest/ rise (and later bake) on that. Let rest covered with a tea towel for about 40 minutes.
About 30 minutes before the baguettes will be ready I heat up the oven ( 450F) with the baking stone on a rack and a empty metal pan on the bottom shelf of the oven. ( You will be adding two cups of water to that metal pan to steam the bread, it gives the bread a wonderful bakery crust, dark, thin and crispy.)
Before you place your baguettes in the oven you need to score them a few times. You can use a very sharp knife, but I again just snip them on the top a few times with my kitchen scissors.
Now you can put the cookie sheet in the oven or slide the parchment paper onto the baking stone or what ever method works for you. Really I am NOT trying to complicate this :O) You can use just about any baking utensil/method and (I have) and it still works out wonderfully.
Quickly stuff it in the oven and put the water in the metal pan and close that oven door as fast as you can to keep as much of the steam in as possible.
Bake for 25 minutes. Crust will be a medium darkish brown colour, also have a somewhat hollow sound when tapped on the bottom.
Cool as long as you can stand to wait to eat.
p.s. I quickly snapped a photo or two of the cut baguette to show how nice the "crumb" is. Unfortunately I took crumby photos and it was badly out of focus. :O(
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