Note: This was originally posted as a comment in melharte’s diary “No Knead Baking Tips for Dummies.” I’ve fixed it up and expanded it a bit, including images and notes.
This is based on world baguette champion Anis Bouabsa’s recipe for home bakers, but with some of my own tweaks.
First Thing to keep in mind: This is going to take time. You should start this roughly 33 hours before you want your bread. The ingredient are simple and so are the procedures. The magic ingredients are precise measurements and TIME.
SO GET THAT KITCHEN SCALE OUT, AND BE PREPARED TO WAIT FOR GREAT BREAD, BRO!
Ingredients:
- All Purpose Flour — I strongly prefer King Arthur AP flour
- Instant Yeast — I strongly prefer SAF Gold instant yeast (from France, but easily found online)
- Salt — I prefer fine pickling salt w/o iodine
- Malt Powder (optional, but recommended)
- Filtered water
Equipment:
- Kitchen scale with metric readout (an absolute must for baking!)
- Small mixing bowl
- Larger mixing bowl
- 2 quart storage container with tight seal (optional)
- Whisk
- Silicon Spatula
- Plastic wrap
- Microwave oven
- Refrigerator
- Cast iron pan or some kind of pan that can be left in oven while heated
- Oven that can reach 510F and fit your baking pan
- Perforated nonstick double baguette baking tray (optional, but highly recommended)
- Clean spray bottle with clean water (optional)
Start with the Starter:
In a small bowl, gently combine:
- 120 grams AP flour
- 113 grams tap water
- 1/16 teaspoon instant yeast (¼ of a ¼ teaspoon)
Then cover in plastic wrap and set aside. Stir once or twice every hour or so. Once its smooth, let it sit with plastic wrap on about 8-10 hours.
8-10 hours later, start the Main Dough:
First, scale out exactly 380 grams of AP flour
In larger mixing bowl place:
- 86 grams boiling water
- 171 grams tap water
- (stir hot and cold together) then add
- 2 teaspoons malt powder (optional)
- 3/16 of a teaspoon instant yeast (basically ¾ of a ¼ teaspoon)
Whisk together
Slowly add in small batches
Start with a whisk, but as it gets thicker, switch to a spatula
Now add:
- The starter that’s been sitting 8-10 hours
Combine well.
Now add slowly in batches:
- 230 grams AP Flour
- 10 grams salt
Don’t over mix. We are going to allow a natural miraculous process called autolyse to do the work for us. As soon as it barely comes together, cover in plastic wrap and let it sit 20-30 minutes.
Come back to it and give it a few turns with a spatula.
Repeat this 4-5 times. By the last time you should see a nice sticky but somewhat silky dough with a strong gluten network. It won’t be super-smooth at this point, which is great, but it should have bit of glisten to it.
Aging the Dough in your Fridge
Transfer dough to airtight plastic container with room to rise (total volume should be at least twice current dough volume. Or, you can simply wrap plastic wrap very tightly around the mixing bowl and put the mixing bowl in the fridge.
Put in refrigerator for 20 hours
When Aging Time is up, preheat the oven
Preheat oven to 510F (yes, that hot! You need serious initial heat to get the oven spring and crack)
Working the Aged Dough
At the same time, remove aged dough from fridge, still covered. Give at least 1-2 hours to come to room temp
Lightly flour a work surface. Turn out wet, sticky dough.
Work gently with dough. Not kneading, but gently folding to get a large ball with a smooth top surface. Only add enough flour to make it barely workable. The less added the better. But must be able to form a ball with a nice smooth surface.
Cover with a large bowl and let rest 1 hour.
Preparing Oven Steam Source
Place cast iron pan in bottom of oven
Boil quart of water
Forming Dough
After an hour of rest, cut the nice smooth ball in half. Place smooth side of half ball on surface and gently pinch edge of cut sides together to form a little loaf.
Gently work and stretch both little loaves into mini baguette length (about 14 inches or 36 cm)
Place in double perferated baguette baking tray or on a lightly oiled baking pan.
Let rest at least 30 minutes.
Slash baguettes with a razor three times, almost parallel to loaf.
Finally, into the oven!
Add hot water to cast iron pan in bottom of oven.
Place baguettes in oven (at 510F)
After about 10-15 minutes, reduce oven temp to 350. Bake until golden brown.
Optional: use a clean laundry sprayer bottle to spritz baguettes with cold, clean water 5-6 times during baking. Do it quick and move the pan a couple of times so that water is distributed evenly. Will help create more dramatic browning.
Remove when done and let cool before cutting. It will be very difficult because it will smell amazing. The use of scant amounts of yeast, the slow, natural aging of the dough, the super-hot and steamy oven, all this will produce the aroma, the flavor, the texture, the glorious irregular bubbles you see here, even the crackly sound of the crusty surface:
The aging process will also help it retain moisture better. Still you’ll want to polish it off within a day or so. It will be hard not to.