Baguette

Sometimes I have the time to make bagels even though they take 2 days.  Sometimes I can make apple cider caramels even though they take 3 hours of stirring.  But sometimes, I just need a quick recipe.  This day was one such time; I had worked all day and came home to prepare dinner for my family, plus Anne and Kate.  I made the butternut squash pasta dish that I shared yesterday, but I wanted to add something more to the dinner.  My sisters made a salad, and I really wished I could have made some bread.  I only had about an hour, but luckily, I had recently seen a recipe for a baguette that rises for 30 minutes and bakes for 15.  I decided to give it a shot!

The recipe makes 2 baguettes, and as you may have guessed, it comes together pretty quickly.  I used my mixer with the dough hook, and the dough did seem pretty sticky at first; I had to add some extra flour, but it was okay.  As usual, my oven took longer than the recipe says and I probably had to bake it for about 25 minutes, but nevertheless I ended up with 2 lovely baguettes in just over an hour!  One of the baguettes was eaten with dinner, and Kate and Anne were very impressed that I had homemade bread for them.  The other loaf was eaten throughout the next few days, with only a small stub getting tossed days later.

So people did definitely like it.  I thought it was pretty good for a quick yeast bread; the crust is really great and crunchy, and the inside is chewy and soft - almost a little spongey, but that's probably what you get for a bread that is ready that quickly!  The recipe says to brush the breads with melted butter when they are halfway through baking; I recommend using salted butter for that.  I didn't, and the original blogger kept talking about how great and salty the butter made the crust taste.  It was certainly pretty, but not as salty as Id like!  The good news is that this bread is salty all on its own anyway - 2 teaspoons in the dough!  Now that's a kind of bread I can enjoy :)

Recipe:

baguette
from The Sisters Cafe
yield 2 baguettes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/2 tablespoons (2 packages) dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
3 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt

Instructions:

1) In a small bowl, mix the warm water with the yeast and sugar.  Let it sit for about 5 minutes - foam should form on the top.

2) In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour and salt.  Gradually add the yeast mixture.  Mix until the dough becomes a smooth ball and knead for 5 minutes.

3) Cut dough in half and shape into 2 baguettes.  To make them smooth, roll each half of dough into a rectangle and roll up lengthwise.  Pinch the edges to seal and place on lightly greased cookie sheet or silpat with seam down.  Cover and let it rise for 30 minutes.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees,

4) With a very sharp serrated blade, gently make a slash down the length of each baguette.  Pour water in a cookie sheet and place it on the bottom rack of the oven.  Bake the bread for 15 minutes.  Halfway through, brush the bread with melted butter.