Complaints have been filtering in about all the time and space I’ve devoted to baguettes the last…what is it…19 weeks? Don’t worry, all you folks out there who are tired of bread baking. I’ll move onto something sweet on Monday. I’m thinking sponge cake.
READ ONI rely on my audience of scientists and/or science buffs to keep me honest in all things technical (I was a Philosphy major, for pete’s sake). Regular reader Hans chimes in with this about steam and bread crust: When was the last time you stuck your face in a plume of steam to feel the […]
READ ONPauline down in New Zealand asked, since a brick oven doesn’t put out the kind of steam a baguette needs, whether I “spritzed” in the inside of my big brick oven. Indeed I do, but since my baking space is a couple of square yards, I need a bit more firepower than a squirt bottle […]
READ ONThat’s an excellent question, Paul C. from Montreal! I was planning on writing about that, back when I was running my fingers about Viennese ovens, but forgot. In fact steam does a lot of things. When steam settles onto a loaf of baking bread, it keeps the surface of the loaf moist and stretchy. That […]
READ ONI am, and always have been, a lard man. Thank God the rest of the world is finally catching up to me.
READ ONOf all the bogus baguette-origin stories I’ve heard, one stands out as being especially persuasive. The reason: because it’s so mundane. It tempts you to think: this is so un-exciting it HAS to be true. It goes like this: the aftermath of World War I saw an intense labor shortage on the Continent in general. […]
READ ONSo then, would my baguettes ever stand up to a grueling inspection of the kind Professor Kaplan would dish out? Certainly not. They aren’t French baguettes. They’re Kentucky baguettes. They were baked in a brick oven, but that’s a far cry from a steam-injected deck oven, the device that is primarily responsible for creating the […]
READ ONAs I mentioned earlier, a great baguette, at least for the home baker, is a journey and not a destination. Still, I’ll have my journey slathered with plenty of raspberry jam, thank you very much. Am I still finding my way toward my perfect baguette? Most certainly, but the following method yields a baguette that […]
READ ONYes, I know what I’ve been saying about baguettes, that they’re the ultimate “fast” bread, that bakeries whip them out in as little as four hours. The thing is, that’s only true if you’ve got your preferments on-hand and ready to go (like full-time bakeries do). Home bakers need to mix up their preferments a […]
READ ONAll those Americans who are dismayed at French disdain for American food will be gratified to learn that the fiercest critic of the modern French baguette is, in fact, an American — a Brooklynite, currently a European history professor at Cornell, a fellow by the name of Stephen Kaplan. Kaplan is on record as having […]
READ ON