French baguette recipe anyone?

Downsizing__for_sanity

Hi there,

Does anyone have a recipe for making french-style baguettes from scratch? We love fresh crusty baguettes and paninis but they go soft so quickly and having lived in France I really miss having fresh bread every day. The round trip to T*sco is 15 miles so I'm sure I'd save on petrol as well!

Unfortunately we don't have a breadmaker yet although if I have some sucess with making them by hand my OH might be persuaded...

Many thanks,

DFS

BlondeHeadOn

Get a Panasonic breadmaker! The French bread made in mine is ace, and you can make the dough and shape it into baguettes to cook in the over if you prefer. I've made ciabatta and spicy fruit loaf today. And I am crap at cooking!!!

The BM is the best thing I have ever bought, and nothing quite beats using the timer so you walk downstairs to the smell of fresh bread every morning....

kathyd_2

If all else fails buy the part-baked baguettes/pannini's. They have quite a long shelf life. :j

simongregson

My bread maker says:-

390g flour
230ml water
splash of oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 teaspoon yeast (dried)
3/4 desert spoon sugar

This works really well, although the 'baguette' is square. I guess if you made the dough by hand and raised it in a warm place, it would work in the oven.

The bread maker raises the dough for about 2 hours, and bakes for 1 hour (French bread aparently needs to raise for longer)

We use value flour, the bread dips in the middle a bit but is very tasty still, aparently bread flour solves this problem.

Simon.