(upbeat music)
- This is the best damn sandwich
I ever ate.
It's a baguette with brie and butter.
I had four of these damn things
every day I was there.
You got to try this.
Here, go ahead.
Eat it, go ahead.
Go ahead.
- Whoa, yeah.
- [Andrew] Hey, what's up guys.
Welcome back to Binging with Babish.
For this week, we're taking a look
at the butter and brie baguettes from "Twin Peaks".
As you can see,
I've already got some nice brie and some nice butter.
So, there's only one thing missing.
Some bakery fresh Persian baguettes.
Which we're going to make
by starting with an overnight poolish.
Which is a very fun word used to describe a quick preferment
that improves both texture and flavor.
We're simply mixing together 120 grams of bread flour,
a little tiny pinch of instant yeast,
and half a cup, or 118 grams, cool water.
Tiny whisk until no dry flour remains.
And you're left with a sufficiently gooey goo.
Cover, and let it sit at room temperature
for at least 12 hours, up to 18.
When you return, it should look very much the same,
but, upon removing the lid
and plunging your fingers into it,
you will find it has transformed
into a nice fermented smelling, very sticky,
ectoplasmic goop.
Which we are now going to add to the final bread batch.
420 grams of bread flour,
four and a half grams,
or one and a half teaspoons, instant yeast,
and tiny whisk in order to protect the yeast from the salt.
12 grams, or two teaspoons, worth of kosher salt.
And a little more than a cup, or 255 grams,
of lukewarm water, along with our starter.
Mixed together with a rubber spatula until just combined.
And then it's time to start getting your hands dirty.
Because we are kneading this dough by hand.
Once a shaggy dough forms, turn it out
onto an unflour-ed work surface, and get to kneading.
Now, this is a pretty high hydration dough, about 68%.
So, it's going to be very, very sticky.
Which, if you are a decidedly unprofessional baker,
like me, is going to be very, very hard to knead.
So, we're going to resort to the good old slap-and-fold.
Basically, just pick the dough up,
slap it down on the table, and fold it over itself.
Repeating for anywhere from eight to 15 minutes,
depending on your forearm strength.
If you need a break from this repetitive and violent act,
you can stop and do a little traditional kneading.
No matter how you do it,
the end game here is gluten formation.
Either way, all you're really doing
is stretching the dough out,
and folding it over on itself,
until the dough is soft and elastic,
and passes the window pane test.
Indicating that you have a strong
and well-developed gluten network,
ready for a one and one half hour long bulk ferment.
That is the act of letting the unshaped dough rise,
covered at room temperature for an hour and a half.
But, we're going to cheat,
and strengthen our dough's gluten network
by doing a couple lift-and-folds.
Halfway through the bulk ferment,
we're going to lift the dough from the edge
and fold it into the center,
five or six times, rotating as we go.
This is going to help compensate
for our lack of experience and upper body strength.
After another 45 minutes,
we ought to see some good bubble action.
And it will be time to divide and shape the dough
on a lightly oiled work surface.
I'm dividing this dough to four parts,
which is going to make for some pretty small baguettes.
Something that, at the time, I didn't know.
So, we're going to pretend that this is our practice round,
as we shape these pieces into balls,
stretching and tucking the dough under itself
until the top is taut.
Covering and letting rest for 15 minutes,
so the gluten relaxes,
and then beginning the baguette shaping process.
First with patting the whole thing out
into a rough rectangle.
No particular size, just as rectangle-y as you can get it.
Then starting, with the side closest to you,
we're going to fold in towards the center.
Repeating with the other side of the dough,
and pressing vigorously to seal.
Then we're repeating this action,
but just one little bit at a time,
pressing down with the heel of our hand,
making sure that the seam is tightly sealed.
You should also hear lots of air bubbles poof-ing out,
like miniature farts.
With that done, we're going to start pressing
and rolling out from the center,
increasing the pressure
as we get towards the outside of the dough,
so as to taper the ends,
forming the dough
into something sort of resembling a baguette.
Which, I'm going to try baking two different ways.
First, in a baguette loaf pan,
which is a sort of trench shaped pan,
filled with lots and lots of little holes.
We're to place this inside of a proofing bag,
and inflate it, like a child's birthday balloon.
And let it rise for about 45 minutes.
The other two, we're going to do the traditional way,
in what the French call a couche.
Which, is basically just a large linen cloth
that we're going to heavily flour and fold into trenches,
in which our loaves can rise under a lightly dampened cloth.
Again, for about 45 minutes.
Once everybody's just about doubled in size,
it's time to score.
Which, ideally you want to do
with a bread lame or razor blade,
but, we're just going to do with the sharpest knife we got.
Five long diagonal slashes,
the ends of which should overlap.
The other two loaves
I'm placing on a well flour-ed pizza peel,
because they're headed onto a pizza stone.
450 Fahrenheit for anywhere from 17 to 20 minutes.
As you can see,
the loaves from the specialized baguette pan look nice
and evenly brown.
We want an internal temp
between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit
and a deep brown crust.
And as you can see, my scores were not nearly deep enough,
which resulted in some blowouts on the side of the loaf.
But, this is still some really gorgeous bread.
A shatteringly crisp crust and a chewy open crumb,
and a nice complex flavor from the overnight ferment.
They say that eating bread still hot out of the oven
will give you a stomach ache,
and I could not give less of a (bleep).
Now our pizza stone loaves are headed out of the oven,
and they kind of look a little bit nicer to me.
A little lighter on the bottom,
a little darker on the top,
and as you can see, I did a slightly better job of scoring.
It's still not good enough.
So, we're starting again,
this time using a stand mixer for obvious reasons.
Everything the same,
except I'm upping the secondary water to 270 grams,
giving the dough a hydration of 72%.
And this time, for more robust baguettes,
I'm dividing the dough in half
instead of quarters.
Rolling out and shaping,
proofing in my couche,
this time for a full hour
to make sure that they're not under-proved.
And just for another experiment,
I'm baking one on a rim baking sheet
and the other on the pizza stone.
And both are being sprayed generously
with water before going into the oven.
Does this comply with the scientific method?
No, not at all.
But the pizza stone method prevailed once again.
And the spritzing of water gave us
an incredibly crackly crust.
They say that you can hear good breads.
So, let's listen in.
(bread crunching)
Now that's the kind of crust
I'd want to demolish the roof of my mouth
when I eat this sandwich.
First, we're going to cut it in half length-wise,
and inspect our nice, irregular, air-y crumb.
And then, this sandwich only has three ingredients.
Read, the absolute best high quality French butter
that you can get your hands on,
which we're going to slather on both sides of the bread,
and lightly salt if your butter is unsalted.
And lastly, a generous stack of sliced French brie.
Remember that when you're following a recipe
as simple as this one,
you want the absolute best ingredients
that you can get your hands on.
Top it up,
and that's it. All there is left to do is consume it
with all the slime-ball energy of a "Benjamin Horne" type.
First, we're going to give it an uncomfortable sniff,
and tear into it from the side,
like some kind of animal.
And, I'm going to speak to you honestly,
from the heart right now,
this was genuinely one of the best sandwiches
I've ever had in my life.
Rich, creamy butter and brie,
tucked into a flavorful, chewy, crispy baguette,
still warm out the oven.
It seriously makes you want to eat it like a sociopath.
And, as you can see from my body language,
I like it.
But, this is "Binging with Babish",
and we're not letting a sandwich go by
without a cross section.
Even if it's kind of lame looking.
It doesn't taste lame looking (muffled speaking).
(upbeat music)