The Heat and French Baguettes

The heat has been unbearable these last couple weeks.  I feel so sorry for the horses who it seems to affect the worse.  With the heat wave came an onslaught of flies.  I can't even spend much time around the horses because of the amount of flies swarming them.  They are relentless.  I spray them down with fly spray and use a fly mask but they continue to come.

I considered a fly sheet, but really it is so dang hot out there the idea of putting on another layer no matter how thin, seems cruel.

The pasture is kept short with the exception of the weeds, but it doesn't matter.

Sierra rocking her fly mask with ear coverage.

The swamp across the road brings out all sorts of fly species. They certainly keep us humans indoors, hence the reason why my sudden interest in baking.  As promised, I tried my hand with a french baguette yesterday.

It tasted very good and was fairly easy to make.  My biggest problem came with shaping the baguette.  I think my dough was softer than the recipe but that only made the bread nice and airy.

However, if you don't like it so airy, then I would recommend adding another 1/2 cup of flour to the mix.  My other problem was that I followed the recipe and placed the bread on parchment paper, but this caused the bread to burn on the bottom.  I'm not really sure if that was the reason why it burned, but I never used parchment paper on my other loaves of bread and none of them burned.  The recipe also said to set the oven at 400 degrees, but I think next time I will lower it to 350.  Other than that, the bread tasted very good and I will definitely make it again.  The more practice I get, the better I'll get at forming the dough I'm sure.  

Here's the recipe.

2 1/2 cups of bread flour (3 cups if you want a firmer bread)

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp yeast

1 cup warm water

1 egg

1/4 tsp water

In a medium bowl, add all dry ingredients including the yeast.  Usually I proof the yeast first but this time I chose not to and it turned out fine.  Add warm water until dough is ready to be kneaded.  On a floured surface knead dough until smooth and elasticy (is that a word?).  Place in a well oiled bowl, rolling it around until it is covered in oil.  Place damp cloth over bowl and let rise for an hour.  Once your hour is up, dough should have risen double it's size.  Punch it to deflate.  Split dough in half.  With a rolling pin roll out dough until it is paper thin in a rectangle shape. On the longest edge, start rolling the dough into itself until you form one long roll.  Pinch the seem shut with your fingers as well as the two ends.  Roll the dough to close the seem.  Take a sharp knife and score the dough in about 4 spots.  My dough was so soft, that the scoring really didn't make a difference.  Place the finished dough on a cookie sheet and let rise for another hour.  When it is finished rising, crack an egg and separate.  Add a 1/4 tsp water to yolk.  Brush this mixture over your dough, place in preheated 350 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes.  And that's it!  Pretty easy as I said with the exception of the shaping of the dough.  I need more practice with my rolling pin before I become a dough swindling wizard!