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Oh, là, là: With this dough, baguettes succeed in the home oven
There are undoubtedly many reasons to travel to France – the scenery, the language, the wine, the Eiffel Tower, the French Riviera and probably a thousand more. But what is often forgotten: the baguette alone is worth a visit. For one very simple reason – nowhere else in the world is as good as there. And that’s exactly why it should be permanently protected: Unesco will probably decide this autumn whether to appoint the baguette as a world heritage site.
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First, an inaccuracy has to be cleared up: Actually, it’s called the baguette – the stick. In France this word is feminine, only in Germany dictionaries tend towards the neuter.
The history of the baguette
And the history of the baguette is not entirely clear either. There is much to point to the Viennese August Zang, who founded a bakery in Paris in the 19th century and introduced the steam oven there, a basic requirement for baguettes. It is also said to have been Zang who developed the croissant from his Viennese croissants – but that is another story.
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The name baguette only became established after the First World War, and the whole product quickly became a political issue: for a long time, there was a law in France that prescribed minimum requirements and a maximum price for this type of bread. For example, a baguette may only contain wheat flour, water, salt and yeast, and for a long time it could not cost more than 90 cents.
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The French supermarket chain Leclerc shocked the country’s traditional bakeries at the beginning of the year with its announcement that it would not be charging more than 29 cents for a standard baguette in future. The national bakers’ guild CNPBF was furious – they rated this dumping price as a “demagogic and destructive campaign”, as they immediately explained.
Baguette is a way of life
Ten billion baguettes are sold in France every year. The French eat an average of 317 of these breads per second. That shows roughly the importance. A life without a baguette? Mon dieu!
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It is all the more difficult to enjoy this piece of French lifestyle in this country. What can be bought ready-made on this side of the French border is often only remotely reminiscent of the original. It just takes a lot of training to bake bread like this satisfactorily. The basic requirement: crispy on the outside, fluffy and coarse-pored on the inside.
Bake baguette yourself: recipe
A promising recipe is the following (for three pieces): 500 grams of flour (Type 550), ten grams of yeast (fresh), ten grams of salt, 350 milliliters of water. Mix the ingredients (preferably by hand) and knead, knead, knead. The longer the better. The same goes for letting go: at least an hour, preferably a few. The volume of the dough should have doubled. Then knead again and let it rise for another hour. Divide the dough into three equal portions, shape into lengths and score diagonally on the top about every five centimeters with a sharp (!) knife.
The most important thing follows when baking: Baguettes don’t just get their crust from the high heat (250 degrees) with a baking time of ten to twelve minutes. Before baking, you should create steam in the oven, for example with a spray bottle (without soaking the dough). Because baguettes should be baked moist.
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In France there is also the tradition of the pre-dough (levain): Before baking, remove 200 grams of the dough, store it in the fridge and add it to the next dough batch. This is supposed to improve the flavor.
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