Recipe for the real French baguette

Finally I got the bread recipe right! Making bread is pretty hard especially as you want it to rise well. The secret is to remember that salt, cold water or boiling water, and yeast don't work very well. So you need to avoid putting the salt at the beggining of the recipe. And mix boiling water and icy cold water to obtain perfect temperature for the yeast to rise. Good luck!

Makes: 3 to 4 baguettes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes (15 minutes with water and 15 remaining minutes without water)
temperature: 220 degrees celcius to start for 10 minutes and then cooking at 210.


Ingredients:

2 cups of plain flour (just buy any kind really, even the cheapest works!)
1 cup of cold water
1 cup of boiling water
1 teaspoon of yeast
1 teaspoon of salt

Preparation:

1. You first need to take a very large bowl (about 30 to 40 cm in diameter as the dough will rise and expand). Put your 2 cups of plain flour in the large bowl.

2. In another smaller bowl, put the 1 cup of boiling water first and then add the cold water to it. Let it sit for 1 minute. Then add the 1 teaspoon of yeast (the reason you need to add boiling water and cold water is because yeast can die very easily due to temperature. Mixing cold and boiling water makes it the right temperature for it to grow). Use a whisk to mix the 3 ingredients thoroughly until the yeast has disolved and the mixture appears frothy (mixing time is about 1 minute).

3. Make a well in the centre of the flour. Add half of the yeast mixture to it (but do not put the salt yet as it will kill the yeast and therefore your dough will not rise). Mix with 1 finger the flour dough softly. When it thick, add more of the yeast mix to it. Keep stiring with your finger until you get a very soft dough (very muddy...). You will see that bubbles are already appearing in the dough. Put some gladwrap on it or a damp teatowel on top of the mixture (I usually prefer gladwrap).

4. Let it sit in a dry plate (kitchen bench or table is fine) for 4 hours without touching it.

5. After 4 hours you can see how the dough has risen (trippled or quadrupled in size).

6. Put about 2 to 3 cups of plain flour on a clean kitchen bench and spread it like a rectangle (about 50x40 cms). Add your teaspoon of salt on top of it. I normally put a few sheets of gladwrap on the bench first and then put the flour on it so it is easier to clean afterwards :P.



7. Put your flour dough on top of the flour. You can see that the dough is full of bubbles. What we want to do it to remove all those bubbles. You need to keep your hands with flour at all times so the dough doesn't stick to your hands. With your hands fold 1 side on top of the other and keep going that way until you can touch the dough without it sticking to your hands. Make a nice boule out of it and put it in a large greased bowl for another 30 minutes.

8. Start your oven to 220 degrees C and leave it for 10 minutes. Put a small bowl containing boiling water on the second rack (it has to be under the bread when it cooks). The water helps the bread being very soft inside and when you remove the water, it will make a crust on the outside. Leave it there another 10 minutes.

9. When the 30 minutes have passed put some flour on the bench again (maybe 1/2 cup is enough) and put your dough on it. Work the dough a little with your hands. You can give the baguette the shape of a baguette or you can even make little mini rolls or any shape you like!
If you are making a baguette, when you have made the shape you need to use a knife and make incerations on top of the bread.


10. When you have shaped your baguettes (you probably will make about 3 to 4 sticks) put them on a cooking tray with about 5 to 10 cm space between each stick.



11. Put the oven temperature to 210 degrees C. Put your bread on the middle rack and let it cook for 15 minutes with the hot water under.



12. After 15 minutes, remove the bowl of hot water and continue to cook the bread at the same temperature for another 15 minutes.



13. Turn off the oven and take the bread out. Let it cool for about 15 minutes before eating it.

Voila!