My first foray into making baguette ended in a success. I was using instant yeast for those, as I was feeling out on a limb a bit. One of the vagaries of blogging is that one's ego tends to get in the way with the cooking and you wish for a resounding success every time.
Well, the world simply does not work
that way. However, it is a lot easier on the ego to just define your
effort as an experiment. Then most of the results are a success
because then you tend to learn a little with each experiment.
Exactly my thinking this time around. I
took a deep breath, opened the refrigerator and hauled out my trusty
wild sourdough. Time for the next experiment. I had already proved to
myself that I can bake a decent baguette, even though it comes out a
bit heavier than the industrial ones. Now it was time for the
sourdough version a la Ziets.
This time around I allowed time for
thawing of the sourdough to the extent of one hour. It is summer here
in the Cape, with the temperature in our little town of Strand
getting into the early thirties Celcius, which is quite hot. I did
not bother to wash the yeast to get rid of the acid this time, but
just fed both the containers with about a cup full of unbleached,
stone ground white bread flour.
 |
| First rise |
This was left to multiply while I went
about my normal chores. The starter had more than doubled in volume
in the space of two hours and it was time to make up the baguette
dough.
The last cup of the stone ground brown
bread flour went into the mixing bowl, along with four cups of the
white bread flour. A teaspoon of salt went on top, after which I
mixed this lot thoroughly before adding the sourdough. This
effectively added about
one cup of water. Another cup of water went
into the mix, resulting in a very runny dough. So I added another
half cup of flour. This made the dough very soft. I mixed this lot by
folding rather than kneading. The dough ball was oiled by patting
with oiled hands, then left to rise overnight in the closed-off
mixing bowl.
 | |
| Second rise after adding flour |
The dough more than doubled in volume
in this
heat, but subsided into a runny mess when turned out onto
the
kneading board. No sweat, I just added another cup of flour to get
the consistency right; a nice soft dough that would stand by itself.
This was left for another three hours to rise, before cutting and
shaping. The dough again more than doubled in volume during this
time. This time I got all the diagnostics right, as well as the
remedial work! Chalk up one for reading the manual!
 | |
| Dough resting after second rise |
The dough was divided into two blobs,
rolled out, lightly floured and rolled back up. The ends were tucked
in nicely and into the baking tins the loaves went.
These were left for about two hours to
rise properly again, then sliced on top and popped into a pre-heated,
steamed oven at 200ºC/400ºF
for 40 minutes. The steam compliments of a small stainless cup of
water in the bottom of the oven.
This
time the loaves came out as expected. The crust was a bit thicker
than expected, but nice and chewy. The crumb had mostly even
fermentation holes and was as heavy as the first baguettes made with
instant yeast. At least I got the consistency right. The taste was a
bit less sour than expected, which is good. Perhaps due to the
absence of rye flour. The crumb colour was on the dark white side,
but this is good, showing the unbleached effect. I think the
coarseness of the flour also plays a role with the denseness of the
resulting loaves. Have to do some research, methinks.
Now
for a sandwich with real butter and mature Cheddar cheese with my
morning tea, I think.
Authored by Johan Zietsman
Last updated on 2012-12-18
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