I’ve been on the lookout for a good baguette for a while now.

Some of the ones I’ve tried are:

– King Arthur Flour’s Classic Baguettes recipe which is not bad but requires some planning to make the poolish (a wet sponge starter) the day before.

– Dan Leader’s 4-hour baguette recipe (via Food 52) which ok so does take just about 4 hours and is ok, but I thought, didn’t provide as much taste.

Then I tried this classic baguette recipe from Peter Reinhart, from the book Artisan Breads Every Day. The recipe is available on NPR here. 

The recipe is a little like the KAF one above, but instead of making a poolish, the whole dough is made in advance and placed in the fridge overnight. Yes, that really did appeal to my laziness…

However, it was only later I realised that I neglected to follow the instructions to the letter….

Where it said to knead by hand and instead just let the mixer and the dough hook do the work (I did mention that laziness bit didn’t I?) and then popped it all in the fridge. I followed the recipe after that.

The thing with baguettes is that home made versions just can’t quite compare to the store-bought ones. But this one, with its relative effortlessness is one I will attempt again. I might leave the dough in the fridge for a couple more days, to see if the taste improves over time.

 

 

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