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Baguette

Four ingredients and a cold overnight rise, baked with steam in the first ten minutes and none after.

Vegan.

Ingredients

Method

  1. FOUR INGREDIENTS AND A LOT OF TIME. Flour, water, salt and a very small amount of yeast -- three grams, not the seven a packet suggests -- with an overnight cold rise doing the work a larger dose would do in two hours. The flavour of bread this plain comes from fermentation and nothing else, and fast fermentation tastes of nothing.
  2. STEAM FOR THE FIRST TEN MINUTES AND NONE AFTER. Steam keeps the crust soft while the loaf expands, which is what gives the slashes their ears; after ten minutes it must leave, or the crust stays pale and leathery instead of going thin and crackling. A tray of boiling water in the bottom of the oven, taken OUT at ten minutes.
  3. THE DOUGH IS WET -- 70 per cent water -- and is folded rather than kneaded. Four folds in the bowl at half-hour intervals, which develops the gluten without working a dough this slack on a surface.
  4. Flour, yeast and cold water mixed to a shaggy mass with no dry flour. Left 30 minutes before the salt goes in -- the flour hydrates better without it.
  5. Salt worked in with wet hands.
  6. FOUR FOLDS at 30-minute intervals: a wet hand under one side, stretched up and folded over the middle, the bowl turned a quarter, four times each round.
  7. Covered and into the fridge 12 to 18 HOURS.
  8. Tipped onto a floured surface, divided into three, and each pre-shaped into a loose rectangle. Rested 20 minutes.
  9. Shaped: folded in three lengthways, sealed with the heel of the hand, then rolled gently to about 35 cm with the ends tapered.
  10. Proved seam side up in a floured cloth, 1 hour 30 minutes, until nearly doubled and slow to spring back.
  11. Turned onto a hot tray or stone, seam DOWN, and slashed along the length with a blade held almost flat -- three or four overlapping cuts, not straight down.
  12. Into a 250C oven with a tray of boiling water below. After 10 MINUTES the water tray comes out and the heat drops to 230C.
  13. 15 minutes more until deep brown and hollow underneath. Cooled on a rack, where it will crackle audibly. Eaten the same day; this is bread with no fat in it and it is stale by morning.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

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