As popular as the baguette has become, it’s no surprise that there are lots of bogus stories about its origin. My favorite attributes its invention to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Forget that the invasion took place some 40 years before anyone had ever heard of a baguette (facts only muddy things up). The story picks […]
READ ONIt’s really just bread dough, only you don’t bake it. Of course, if you make bread regularly enough you can just make a little extra dough and hold it in reserve for the next batch. Pâte fermentée will keep for 3 days in the fridge and about 3 months in the freezer. A basic formula […]
READ ONPâte fermentée is what we in the English-speaking world call “old dough”, even though it means something closer to “fermented” or “ripened” dough in French. Classically, the old dough technique is very simple. Every time a baker makes a batch of baguettes (or some other bread that might be improved by old dough) he or […]
READ ONSo then, we’ve established that the baguette was the premier urban fast food of its day, made fast, sold fast and eaten fast (for indeed I forgot to mention that the great marketing advantage of the baguette — because it is so thin, light and fluffy — is that it stales within hours, requiring fresh […]
READ ONFor those of you who can’t bear to pry yourselves away from your terminals lest you miss the debut of another scintillating Joe Pastry post, I’m now on Twitter — which means you can carry me around in your purse or pocket and never have to suffer Joe Pastry separation anxiety. Truth be told I’m […]
READ ONSo, the baguette. Just a skinny stick of bread, right? Just more of the same stuff that comes in a loaf, only rolled out into a long skinny shape. What’s the big deal? In fact once upon a time it was a very big deal, primarily because the baguette was the edible outcome of series […]
READ ONAfter the beret, the tight black turtleneck and the skinny mustache, is there anything more stereotypically French than the baguette? I think not, which is a bit, oh, how do you say in your country…ironic. For the baguette is not French. Or to put it more precisely, the baguette was not invented by the French. […]
READ ONThis is my first official bread request, and it’s a doozy. It’s not that baguettes are difficult to make, but that there’s a certain Zen to them. Good baguettes are less a destination than a journey. They only have four ingredients — and in France can have nothing more by penalty of law — so […]
READ ONReader Kate writes in with this about sifting: I had an interesting experience with sifting the other day. I was trying out this “organic, whole grain pastry flour” for kicks, and while sifting, was surprised to find a weevil pop up from the sieve! Having been raised on all-purpose bleached flour, it was a shock. […]
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