Sourdough Baguettes

This recipe will make four  sourdough baguettes.  The baguette length is about 40 cm ( to fit in a home oven).  These sourdough baguettes have  beautiful crust and great bubbles inside.  They are delicious.

There is no dry yeast added in this recipe (not necessary). You will need an active starter.

As for all sourdough bread making, there is flexibility in the timing of the dough making and baking. Assuming STEP 1 (see below) is complete (24 hours required), in terms of timing for the making of your baguettes,  I propose two approaches:

1. Shorter time-frame: start in the morning and have  sourdough baguette by mid-afternoon or dinner.  In that case, the second rising is done at room temperature.
2. Longer time frame: if you want your baguette for, let’s say, Sunday morning, you would start the making sometimes on the Saturday, the latest mid-afternoon. Your sourdough baguettes will do the second rising in the fridge overnight.

NOTE: I posted this recipe a few years ago. I have slightly changed the ratio of starter to flour&water since. In the end, the wet to dry ratio is the same. What changes is the proportion of starter in the mix.   These days I do not use the Kitchen id for the baguette dough. I would punch it once  about half an hour after mixing the dough and forget the bowl (covered with a tea towel) in the fridge until the next day.  That leaves plenty of time for the yeast to slowly develop and grow. The next day, I shape them, let them rise, and bake them.

Starter

You will need 500 g of active starter. Once your starter is developed, don’t forget to save a little for next time.  I do not cover here how to develop a starter.  Here are a few pages that can help:

• King Arthur ( a brand of flour) instructions 
• A practical step to making your starter (by SBS Food) 

For my starter I used organic rye flour and bottled water. Organic rye flour because it has the natural yeast you are after and bottled water because there is no added chlorine.  Then you will want to use unbleached white bread flour, organic or not. It worked every time, give it a go.  For the water, once the starter is established, tap water is fine, the yeast will at that stage be strong enough to resist a little chlorine.

A starter takes a few bread cycles to develop to its full strength.

Alternatively, contact me and we can explore options of me sending you some starter (I have done so before).

Ingredients:

Note: flour in this recipe is bakers flour.

• 500 g of starter
• 750 g of bread flour
• 550 of water
• 14 g of salt
• spare flour for dusting

UPDATED RATIOS:

• 225 g of starter
• 890 g of bread flour
• 640 g of water
• 14 g of salt

You will also need:

• Optional – a stand mixer with a dough hook (see tip in method if you do not have it)
• a dough scraper
• baguette tins (enough for 4 baguettes).  You can do without, the baguettes will be a bit flatter on the bottom.
• a few clean tea towel
• a large plastic bag

Method:

STEP 1:  Starter development and pre-fermentation.

Twenty four hours before preparing the dough, feed your starter to obtain 500 g of active starter. In my case I mix the kept starter (150 g) with 200  of flour and 200 g of water and leave in the corner of the kitchen for 24 hours. Leave at room temperature until it is about three times the size. If you are starting from another quantity of saved starter develop to obtain 550 g .  The 50 g extra is what you save to keep your starter for the next batch.

At the same time, mix in a plastic box the 750 g of flour with the 550 g of water, make a very rough dough. Place the lid on and put in the fridge overnight.

STEP 2: Dough making

Have your starter for the next batch? Take 50 g of developed starter from the starter, add to those 50 g, 50 g of water and 50 g of flour. Mix and place in the fridge for up to a week. If you are not a frequent baker, decrease the water to 25 g, this will keep the starter fed for longer, about two weeks.

Place the 500 g of starter, the water-flour mix and the salt in the mixer bowl.  Mix on low-speed for about five minutes or until the dough forms a ball and no longer stick to the side of the bowl.  Do not exceed ten minutes, you then run the risk of over-developing the dough.

Tip: if you do not have a mixer or prefer to do it by hand, this works as well. In a large bowl, place the flour, the developed starter, the water and the salt. Ensure the salt is not directly in contact with the developed starter at this point. With your hands (use the 2 of them), mix until it is homogeneous.  Let to rest covered for 30 minutes to an hour. With one wet hand, grab a corner of the dough and punch it in the middle, give a quarter turn to the bowl and repeat about 4 times (imagine taking each cardinal point and placing it to the centre, do this twice). Alternatively, after the first punching round, place in the fridge covered with a tea towel overnight. 

Tip: Because the baguette dough is more sticky than the bread dough, don’t forget to have a wet hand while doing the punching.

Place the dough in a large bowl, cover with a tea towel and allow to rise to almost double size.

Tip: The rising time will depend on the temperature and humidity level.

STEP 3: Preshape

This step is not strictly necessary, I often skip it.  It is possible to skip it as long as you cut your dough in 4 balls gently and are not tempted to rework it.

The dough has risen. Dust the kitchen bench and gently pull the dough on the kitchen bench. Using a  knife or the dough scraper, cut into 4 portions (4 baguettes).

One portion at the time, spread the dough gently (up to 20 cm wide) by pulling on it, this time in the shape of a circle.  Again imagine four corners and pull each towards the centre. Repeat another time or two. You are close to having a ball. Pinch the centre to close the ball, turn around and using your hands firmly placed on the kitchen bench (they must not lift), scoop the back of the ball and bring towards you. The dough should roll tucking the front underneath and simultaneously tightening the skin. Turn 90 degrees and repeat. If the ball does not tuck or roll, often it is because there is too much flour on your bench.

Rest covered  loosely with the tea towel for 10-15 minutes.

STEP 4: Shaping

It is now time to shape the 4 baguettes.

Take one ball of dough.  Pull it gently until you get a rectangle about 20-30 cm by 10-15 cm. Be mindful not to push the dough but to pull it gently.

Tip: Here it is very important to understand that you want to keep as much as possible all the bubbles and air in the dough, so you need to be gentle with it.

The short edge will be facing you:

1. Imagine a line in the middle of your rectangle parallel to the narrow edges. Fold each narrow edge towards that line, the edges should just meet.
2. Using the heel of your palm, flatten the dough pressing down on the new line. Repeat the previous step (alternatively fold only to a quarter length each end then another quarter so that the halves meet in the middle). Now pull the upper edge 2/3 towards you. Next, pull and stretch the lower edge over as to wrap the log as much as possible.  pinch the line where the dough stops to close the log.
3. At each end of the log pinch the end to close the baguette.
4. Turn the log seam down on the workbench.
5. Roll the baguette back and forth and lengthen it (remember your high school pottery class!) to the length of your baguette tin.
6. Transfer (seam down) on the baguette tin.

Tip: if you do not have a baguette tin, use a large tea towel and make little gutters, dust with flour and place your baguettes in each of them. 

STEP 5: Second rising

If you are baking the baguettes the next day, wrap the tins with a tea towel. You can place them in a large plastic bag to prevent them from drying (it depends on your fridge). Then place in the fridge.  You need to take them out of the fridge an hour or so before baking, you also need to ensure they have risen enough (almost double), else allow them to rise before baking.

If you are baking them the same day, cover with clean tea towels and allow to rise.

You know the bread is risen sufficiently when a little poke bounces back slowly yet leaves a print.

 

SEPT 6: Baking

Heat up the oven to maximum (about 250 °C) with a pan of water at the bottom of the oven.

Use a scoring blade (available online) or a very sharp knife, do incisions at 45 degrees as suggested here on the left. Add a dusting of flour if wished.

Place in the oven without losing too much of the heat and steam.

Reduce heat to 200 °C and bake until golden. Remove from the oven, allow to cool down.