Ta da!

When I was in NYC, I had the pleasure of meeting Dan Leader. Dan is the owner/baker for Bread Alone in New York. He was kind enough to give me a copy of his cookbook 'Local Breads' and even autographed it for me!

In return, I promised to use it to further my New Year's Resolution of becoming an excellent bread baker. His advice was to start out with the 4 Hour Baguette. I do love a good baguette, so I figured I would give it a try.

However, I was a little apprehensive about making a baguette because I've read up pretty extensively on it. Julia Child has an incredibly detailed account in her cookbooks. When I read her memoir I nearly died hearing about how her original method included a block of asbestos in order to produce the heat needed, in addition to steam, which produces the most authentic texture. Obviously, I am not located in France, nor do I have a baker's wood fired oven at my disposal, so I'm a slave to what I have available to me as a home baker. Hence, feeling a little nervous about how to get a good quality turn out.

Turns out, I needn't have worried. Other cookbooks have a lot of technical jargon about them. This is where Julia's methods start getting scary. Dan's book was super straight forward and I really appreciated it!

I like the idea of a 4 Hour Baguette. His time line is spelled out and I followed along pretty dang accurately. The start of the process is the least time consuming. Nigella Lawson would consider it "quick, cook slow", meaning that you spend a little time prepping it and then it does its own thing. This gets you through the dough prep, fermentation and first rising. I was able to eat lunch and do some laundry in between bread steps. Then things start to get more hands on. And fun.

Steven was kind enough to photograph for me:

Here I am starting to shape the dough:

The rolling creates the seamless shape of the baguette. I had no idea that there are special techniques for this. All handily spelled out with diagrams in the book.

Lovely cookbook!
Finally, all risen and ready for baking. I slashed those marks quickly and confidently! (Seriously- that's what it says to do)...
Finally, after some not-so-patiently waiting I was rewarded with some delicious looking loaves of bread.

I was worried that my oven wouldn't be big enough to accommodate the cast iron skillet (where you put some ice in to create the steam) and the baking stone, but it worked out. However, my baguettes didn't fit on my stone so I had to improvise. I have a bigger stone which I will use next time. I ended up just placing my baking sheet on the stone directly instead of using it to transfer the bread to the stone. I improvised and it turned out ok. Next time I will know what to do better.
Not too bad for a little Sunday project! I even managed a craft project between risings. More on that when I hang it up tomorrow. I'm going downstairs to enjoy some spoils of my bread victory!