Baguette Trays

[idun]

In the past I have mentioned that the silicone baking trays/pans have not worked for me and my cakes etc have stuck, in spite of buying, a good make..... 'Tefal'!

In fact I have complained about a few cooking things, so best mention when I have found something truly wonderful[:D]

http://www.clasohlson.com/uk/Baguette-Tray/34-9377

I have made ficelles, baguettes and flutes using this. Never sticks and I would like another one or two of these. If we want a good crust, I make sure that I make steam in the oven when baking these, but IF we fancy 'softer' crusts, I don't bother, because cooking is about what one likes to eat and not what is the done thing.[Www]

So I can thoroughly recommend clas ohlson's baguette trays.

[Patf]

I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I don't like baguettes, though your special tray seems very good. I find them too tough on my teeth. I've never made them.

Did you see the Bakeoff this week? One of the tasks was to make 4 baguettes, and none of them looked to me like those that we can buy here. Some of them used the steam method to get a good crust.

I wonder what kind of flour they used - I thought you had to use french flour to get that holey texture?

[idun]

So how do you shape your bread Patf?

I love varying it. Buns, huge pain de campagne type loaves, small ones like petit batards and just  hand formed loaves that nestle against one another on the baking tray. Not keen on using loaf tins to be honest.

[Patf]

Mostly I use both loaf tins, and buns - either in a swirl like a snail or in a 4 plait. 2 loaves and 4 buns from a kilo of flour

I've made chelsea buns a few times, and something like stollen with marzipan and fruit.

I love baking, and enjoy the Bakeoff mainly because of the unusual recipes.

[Sunflower]

The holey texture is created by wetter dough which is almost impossible to produce by the English kneading method which requires the addition of lots of additional flour to prevent sticking.

The amount of water content in a recipe is expressed using bakers percentages where everything is expressed as a percentage of the flour content. Baguette recipes are 70-75% hydration so if your recipe has 1kg of flour then the water content is 700 - 750gms (or mls).

Baguettes are usually made using a pre ferment (in France a 'poolish') which gives the bread its flavour and many recipes include a small percentage of rye flour which gives a nice colour to the finished bread.

You don't need to use a baguette tray to bake - well floured couche (piece of linen, pleated between the baguettes) works just as well and is very traditional for artisan baguettes.

[Patf]

That's interesting, Sunflower. I've seen videos of french bakers working with a very wet dough. They seem to slap it around a lot, and do this several times as the dough becomes more workable. I wouldn't have the patience.

[idun]

I have been using 'wet' dough for years.

I noticed that Paul Hollywood on 'Bake Off' always oils the surface instead of flouring it.

Me, I put a very small amount of flour on the surface, next to nothing really, a light dusting, I think I'd call it and then I just knead. Bread is a strange old thing, and it is almost as if one has to master it. The inexperienced bakers I show how to make bread just don't seem to be able to get the dough to behave itself and it goes all over, especially their hands, sometimes none on the table and two 'boxing gloves' of dough. Eventually they too manage the dough and get it to do as they want.

I used to line up my flutes or baguettes on a baking tray, but I love this new thing and it does not stick at all.

I just love making bread. The most rewarding thing I cook, start with next to nothing and have something remarkable at the end.

[Sunflower]

You don't need to use oil or flour. Working with a wet dough requires the 'slap and fold' technique that Pat referred to rather than kneading (see link below). This technique won't work if you have any flour on your work surface as you are using the stickiness to work the dough. A number of stretch and folds (4 to 6) at regular intervals during the bulk ferment will also help improve the structure of a wet dough. The only time you use flour, and then very sparingly, is to shape the dough.

If you knead a traditional pain au levain dough you'll end up with a pancake :) Yeasted bread, however, is more forgiving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvdtUR-XTG0

[Pommier]

You inspired me to have a go at baguettes yesterday. I had a look for recipes and chose a French one - some of the UK ones used oil in the dough, but the French one was 250g flour, 5.5g salt, 7.5g yeast and 175ml of water. I mixed it with dough hooks on a hand mixer and once it had proved shaped it into 2 sausages and baked it in a very hot oven with a dish of hot water with it. It came out really quite good, although I suspect that a harder flour might improve it (but I'm too mean to buy it!)

[Sunflower]

Pommier - par baking baguettes and freezing works really well. Bake until they are just slightly colouring, cool and then freeze. Then bake from frozen (@ ~225C) until golden. I make a dozen at a time - they're really convenient to have in the freezer :)

[idun]

LOL, and the french baker had flour on his table.

I just knead. I haven't bothered with strong flour, I use cheap and cheerful stuff and do it as the french say for so much, 'à ma façon'. I make good bread and have never had any desire to replicate a true french baguette or flute, what ever they are, because in reality, I have never had the 'same' bread twice when I buy from different boulangeries. It appears boulangeries in France bake bread 'in their own way too'[:D].

I actually have some 'french crust flour' in my cupboard, bought from Lewis and Cooper, their words (world-renowned gourmet food emporium).Maybe I should give it a go!

[Sunflower]

First of all I was replying to Pat's question about holes in the bread vis-à-vis a wetter dough - and the techniques required to achieve such bread. My comments were meant to be informative - but you appear to have been taken them as the basis for an argument.

Secondly there was no additional flour on the table. You can see from the dough that he had turned it out while there was still dry flour in the mix. The following videos state explicitly 'no flour on the work surface'. For bread, wetter is better. Every time you add flour you make the final dough drier...and move away from your original recipe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dUZ0O-Wv0Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOjSp5_YiF0

Breads are unique to bakeries - as most will use their own pâte fermentée or poolish to add flavour. This flavour will vary with the local yeasts and lactobacillus and will be unique to each location - and to the age of the pâte fermentée.

As I said to Pat, you don't need fancy flour to get holes and crust. The most important thing is the protein or gluten content (so a strong white in English terms; in France a 55). 'Holes' are from a wet dough: crust from high temperature and steam. The latter you can reproduce by using a cast iron lidded casserole dish. Heat the oven with the casserole dish inside to 250C for an hour before starting to bake. Then turn the temperature to 225C and drop the proofed dough into the hot casserole dish, replace the lid and return to the oven. Cook for 20 minutes (~1kg loaf) with the lid and then a further 20 minutes without the lid. This will (almost) replicate the commercial ovens that use steam for the first part of the cooking.

Pat - try it. If you are worried about the stickiness then the best way to keep your hands free of dough is to wet them periodically. If you also use what's called an 'autolyse' (mixing all the ingredients except the salt and leave for 30 minutes then add the salt) you will significantly reduce the amount of time you have to spend kneading. Time can also do much of the kneading work for you. So knead for a a few minutes, leave for half an hour and come back and knead for a couple of minutes more etc. Do this two or three times and you'll be amazed at how workable the dough becomes. (Knead = slap and fold rather than pummel and punch :) )

[Patf]

Sunflower - I used to do all kneading by hand but since damaging my shoulder husband bought me a machine with a kneading hook. It can cope with Ikg flour at a tme.

I might experiment with this wet dough, but as I said earlier I'm not so keen on baguettes. And I don't like french flour, very low in gluten and the bread dries out so quickly.

I have an endless supply of old baguettes from a neighbour which we give to our chickens. They're rock hard and have to be soaked first.

[mint]

[quote user="Patf"]

I have an endless supply of old baguettes from a neighbour which we give to our chickens. They're rock hard and have to be soaked first.

[/quote]

Pat, that doesn't surprise me at all.  After all, do we not have a saying "as rare as hens' teeth"?[:D]

And, yes, I am only pulling your leg because anything to do with "teeth" is a rather sensitive topic with me at the moment.

Imagine my humiliation when I recently broke a front tooth and the emergencmy dentist I saw wrote to my own, usual, dentist, stating that madame broke her tooth when she was eating a piece of bread!

I had to have root canal treatment in the end and a crown............

So, you are right insofar as I should perhaps have soaked the baguette before sinking my teeth into it?[:D]