Baguettes

I made the recipe Baguettes from Ye olde bread blogge

If you also want to try this recipe, you can visit his site.



There are a few things that puzzled me in this recipe. First, when using a préferment, usually no salt is added. I have always wondered why. I guess it is because salt inhibits the growth of the yeast. When leaving it out, the yeast can easily multiply. However, this recipe tells you to add salt to the préferment, so I did.

Second, the ingredients for the final dough do not contain extra yeast. And now the salt is added later, after autolyse. I do not own Richard Bertinet's book, and I don't know if he explains all this in the book.



I didn't use fresh yeast, but instant yeast. That worked fine too.
I think the crumb is a little dense, I would have liked that to be somewhat more loose.
That might have to do with the instant yeast, but I don't really think so. I did have loose crumb results in the past with instant yeast.
Maybe the second rise wasn't long enough (1 hour and 15 minutes), or maybe it was too long, because the ovenspring wasn't very much either.

I liked the taste of the breads very much, and so did my husband. I ate them for breakfast and later that day with a bowl of chicken soup. I think I will make them again.