I love bread, so when I saw that "Bread Baking Without Agony" was next, I was thrilled. And it would be a perfect accompaniment to the delicious, enormous pot of vegetarian chili that I made.
However, I think I'm going to need to try this recipe again, because this time it came out oh-so-hard. I mean, I was a little worried about my teeth breaking off, although they didn't. I don't know--it's probably my fault--I probably left it in the oven too long or didn't knead it enough or something. Colwin's directions are so vague and I'm so lazy--she writes, "Knead the dough well." I do better with a time limit.
Her recipe for a baguette:
1) Mix 1 1/2 cups flour with 2 1/4 cups wheat flour. Add one heaping teaspoon salt and one tablespoon of wheat germ (yum--wheat germ is one of my favorite things).
2) Mix a scant 1/2 teaspoon of yeast with 1 1/2 cups of liquid--half milk, half water.
3) Pour the liquid into the flour and stir it up. It can be ever so slightly on the sticky side.
4) Knead the dough well, roll it in flour, stick it in a bowl, leave it in a cool place and "go about your business."
5) "Whenever you happen to get home, punch down the dough, knead it well, roll it in flour and forget about it until convenient."
6) "Sometime later punch the dough down, give it a final kneading, shape into a baguette, slash the top with four diagonal cuts, brush with water.
7) Bake at 450 for 30 minutes and 425 for another 20.
(My pizza pan/baking tray.)
It was too hard. Also maybe a little too whole-wheat.
2 comments:
That seems like a really long, hot bake time for a baguette. I bet you're right about that being why it came out so hard.
Good to know! This is the best part of blogging my cooking attempts: finding out from others what went wrong!
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