Hello everyone, I'm Xiao Gao Jie.
These days, it is upsetting to see
the spread of the virus.
When it becomes so disturbing, let's knead a dough together.
Baguettes need only few ingredients. The less ingredients a bread needs, the harder it is to make.
Dissolve yeast with room temperature water.
Add flour and salt.
I use all purpose flour.
If you are not familiar with your all purpose flour, then use bread flour instead.
Stir with a spatula.
Stop when there is not dry flour left.
You can mix flour and water by your hand.
However this dough is quite wet and will be very sticky.
Cover with lid and ferment for one hour at room temperature.
During this period, knead the dough twice.
After half an hour, let's knead the dough.
Rather than kneading, it is actually a process of stretching and folding.
After pulling for ten times, the gluten becomes tight, and it is hard to stretch 安any longer.
Now we throw the dough to the bowl for a few times.
It becomes smooth.
This stretch-fold operation takes only half a minute.
After another half an hour, do the same again.
Then, wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator overnight.
The next day, the dough is two to three times as large.
Dip some dry flour on your hands
A big bubble comes up unexpectedly.
You can tell from the big bubble that
after fermentation, the gluten is pretty strong.
It can actually be blown up like a balloon.
Take a look at the dough under the bubble.
The inside is very wet.
It is a such interesting network structure,
Which eventually will become the structure inside of the baguette.
Take out the dough and divide it into quarters.
The cut surface is very wet
Fold the wet sides inwards, and it becomes a ball.
Let it rest for 40 minutes.
Forty minutes later, take a dough.
The dough soft and wet, but
it doesn't stick to the chopping board at all after 40 minutes.
Smooth side down.
Press down gently with your fingers and roll up.
More air bubbles remain in the dough by this way.
Of course, you can seal it with the palm of your hand.
Press in the middle first.
And roll it longer with your hands.
It will shrink, roll it out as long as you can.
Then stop and work on the next one.
All four are done, pick up the first one.
Now roll it to the length you want.
This length is directly related to the size of your oven.
If it shrinks badly, you can rest it for another 5 minutes.
Sprinkle a light layer of dry flour on the parchment paper.
Put on the dough.
Put another one.
Lift the parchment paper in the middle.
Let the dough rest for 40 minutes in the partition of the baking paper.
My home temperature is 21 degrees Celsius.
If your home is warmer, shorten the final fermentation time.
It is time to preheat the oven.
Take your old, worn-out baking pan.
Put some small stones.
It is OK if you don't have any stones, just put the empty baking tray in the oven.
Preheat the oven at highest temperature.
My oven is 550 ° F, 285 ° C.
After forty minutes, cut the paper.
Bake two at a time.
Use a pizza peel
to transfer them to the oven with paper.
Before entering the oven, score the bread.
Your kitchen knife is definitely not going to work.
Put in the oven.
Pour boiling water on stones.
Be careful not to splash water on the glass on the oven door.
The glass will crack when it encounters water.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Done!
The steam baking method not only makes the surface of the bread very crispy,
but also makes its color very beautiful
By looking at it, you can feel how crispy it is.
Cool down a little, let's cut open to see inside structure.
Many large bubbles and small bubbles are evenly distributed through the bread.
This is a relatively wet dough,
but it doesn't require lots for kneading.
Kneading only took a minute all together.
We have to know
how to utilize time effectively for bread making.
After all, time is one of the most important ingredients in baguette making.
Thank you for watching. This is Xiao Gao Jie. See you next time.