I started writing this, oh so long ago, it’s actually, truthfully months ago. I got asked today if my blog was still alive, and while I answered truthfully that it’s currently half-alive, I was struck not only by “oh wow, someone besides mom and some wordpress users read” – not that I don’t appreciate all readers, I do, my heart skips a beat everytime I get a notification that someone likes my post and even more so when someone follows it, I get over the moon and beyond stupid happy. So, thanks! – but I also realised, that I love writing this and I’ve missed it. I do love it, I’m a quiet person among most, but here I speak endlessly, and when you loose focus, I don’t notice, I don’t have to doubt myself or your interest in me and it’s liberating. I think too much, and here I let it all loose. ALL. Sorry. Thanks. I have all along considered this blog alive, very much so, and thus I’m setting myself to work, I’m finishing this post that I apparently started 1 month and 28 days ago. Sorry it took so long. But also not sorry, life happens, and I don’t want any pressure to write. I want to feel the love and enthusiasm and passion. I want to write with a smile on my face as I’m currently doing. I believe it’s for the best. And on a side note, let’s just note that I’m currently also baking sourdough bread. My monster is very much alive.
Thanks for reminding me about one of the things I love in my life! Here follows the rest of the post. What most of you are probably waiting to get to.
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Having “perfected” the bagels my bagel-mania had piqued and started to fade, and Baguettes took its place. Apparently my sourdough mania follows an alphabetical order, who knew. I certainly didn’t, here I thought I was inspired in a flash as I browsed through a kitchen supply store, drooling over various things I want and need and will have at some point in the future, like a completely normal person does. What I saw was baguette pans and I just knew that baguettes was the missing link in my life.
No, I didn’t spur of the moment, love of my life, necessary for my survival, invest in the baguette pans. Sadly, or sanely, but I still want them, no, need them. Because the baguettes were crazy good and devoured in a flash, even when I did four times the recipe and ended up washing out a plastic box in the shower, and then hand kneading on my knees, at times laughing hysterically, at times manically, and at times wondering how my life came to this. If you read the last post you might see a pattern. Quadruple batches is not for a normal kitchen.
But let’s get to the recipe, and for yours and my sake I’m not going to give you the quadruple measurements and amounts, if you want to try that, which I strongly suggest you don’t, you can quadruple on your own. Also, make sure you’re not alone when/if you quadruple it. A quadruple batch of dough is not only heavy to knead it’s absurdly heavy once you’re mentally and physically worn out, laughing hysterically and tiredly, and having support, if only mental support is good. But I’ll get back to that part later first you need a dough. So let’s start with that, get your rye sourdough monster out of its nest and (for 1 batch, about 6 small-ish baguettes (just FYI, I mean why make only 6? small. You could double it, easy)) put 100g of your monster into a spacious (if quadruple, ridiculously spacious) bowl. Now for the feed you need 100g of rye flour and 200g of strong wheat flour along with 350g of lukewarm water. Mix and cover with cling film and let it sit and ponder over night, preferably somewhere slightly warm and cosy.
Next day yet? Good. Now you remove the cling film from your sourdough and add 300g of water and 700g of strong wheat flour and mix for about 8 minutes if you have a “dough-kneading-machine” (I just can’t figure out the word right now), but you don’t. I don’t. So I knead it by hand, and that works just fine, normally… When you quadruple the batch it gets out of hand. It’s insane and beyond, slightly terrifying, but I sort of pushed it around. I usually lean in to the dough as I knead it, to get more power and energy, but here I more than leaned into it, I became part of it. Now for the oh so fun thing, now when you’re tired and almost all out of kneading power, now you’re going to add about 20f of salt, I used slightly less, and work it in for about 2 min if you have a machine to do it. But slightly longer if you don’t, about until you simply can’t move your hands, when you’re closer to petting than kneading the dough, stop.
Now you, obviously, have a plastic box with a lid that you have greased with rapeseed oil (according to the origninal recipe you grease it with an oil that doesn’t leave a taste. But I used olive oil, because yum!), that you can simply move the dough into. This is where you need support if you’re making a quadruple batch, I had managed at this point to get my brother to come in and help and between the two of us we eventually managed. But it wasn’t easy and would’ve been impossible alone. Now if you make a double batch moving the dough isn’t that hard. Simply slip it over, close the lid and leave it be for 3-5 hours. Clean up.
Oh and during those 3-5 hours while it’s supposed to double in size you need to open it up and fold it 2-3 times, the first time after 1 hour, then after every 30 minutes. If you have slightly wet hands, the dough won’t stick as much, if you’re lucky, not at all.
When it’s doubled in size you need to start shaping them. The first round of shaping, your going for round dough-balls. You take a lump of dough, fold the edges in and under and then you spin and stretch the surface. Now the recipe book I had showed great step by step instructions. And in Swedish there’s a word for the technique, “rundriva”, but I’m stumbling at finding a way to clearly describe it for you. A google search later, I found many hits from websites and videos showing the technique, but instead of giving you a link that will ultimately stop working. I find linking outside your own website is almost always going to haunt you, because the link disappear and then you have to find a replacement and such (it’s hard enough to link internally, cause you’ll change and remove stuff without realizing the consequences 😉 ). So if I can help it, I won’t, but google “baking shaping round” and you’ll probably get similar hits, or add to the search to find the right video or website. I gave you the basic what to look for above, fold in and spin and stretch, look for that.
Let them rest for a bit and then shape into baguettes, by flattening into an abstract rectangle, folding in the top part slightly below middle, press and then fold the bottom slightly above the seem. Then roll from the top to the bottom, so the seem is somewhere in the middle of the whole thing. Place the new seem underneath, make the seem the bottom. I’m sure you’ll be able to find better instructions for this too, it’s very easy to do, I assure you, but it’s not as easy to explain without showing. If you could see my hands as I wrote this you would’ve understood without a problem, as I’ve just folded the air multiple times whilst trying to think of how to explain it.
Let the baguettes rise for 1-2 hours. Turn the oven on to 275*c and put in a baking tray for the baguettes. When the baguettes have risen, slide them onto the baking tray and add in an oven dish or something with a splash of water in it for steam. The baguettes are done after about 15-20 minutes, but after 10 you should open up the oven and let the steam out, then re-close.
Ta-daa! Hopefully you now have at least 6 baguettes! Celebrate and devour. Then make more and more and more until you make too much. Then don’t do that again. Know your limits. So you know to have help within reach when you push the boundaries the next time 😉
I found the recipe in Martin Johansson’s book “Surdegsbröd”, and I’m already set on trying out the crisp bread recipe from the same book. Hoping it’s as good as this one.
‘Til next time, make something you love, whether it is baking baguettes or something different entirely. Have fun!
GardenBookCook 