In the Year of Fearless Baking: Episode #7: Baguettes Revisited

Ok: I know, I know. This project is so new, and I’m still so inexperienced, that I shouldn’t be revisiting anything yet. But the thing is, ever since my sourdough journey began several weeks ago, I have been feeling like my first attempt at baguettes may not have been, like, a real experience. If a real baguette takes longer to make, but tastes better, isn’t it worth trying out a more legit recipe? Especially since the ‘fast’ one I tried out back in January is now well within my comfort zone?

And the answer, friends, is yes. Because I said so, and because there is another bread baking technique I have been wanting to try: the use of ‘old dough’, or pate fermentee. And before I move on completely from lean doughs (from March onwards, this project becomes mostly about pastry), I thought I should at least try it out.

So, this weekend I used this baguette recipe, which calls for pate fermentee as well as sourdough starter. The principle of using ‘old dough’ (a term which I dislike, because it just kind of sounds gross), is to save some bread dough from any given recipe, stash it in the freezer, and mix it into the next bread dough. Since this ‘old’ dough has already gone through one fermentation process, it just adds another layer of flavor to the bread.

Since complex flavor is what I’m after, it sounded like a fantastic prospect. However, since I had not thought to save any dough from my various baking projects last weekend, my quest for baguette excellence began with mixing up a simple dough yesterday, letting it rise, and then popping it in the fridge. This morning I divided the dough up into smaller pieces. One I used in the baguette dough today, and the rest went into the freezer (along with a piece I cut from today’s batch) for future use.

We have named the pate fermentee Penelope; she is like Tony’s kid sister. In fact, the two of them are like siblings sleeping in bunk beds, with Penelope taking the top bunk in the freezer while Tony snoozes below her in the fridge. Pretty cute.

Aside from the two preferments, the baguette shaping and baking process went pretty much the same way the first recipe did. In fact, everything was going very smoothly indeed until I got a little too involved in something else and left them in the oven just a little too long. I could pretend that the singed look was what I was going for, but instead I’m going to just own up to my fuck up.

On a positive note, the crumb structure looks pretty gorgeous on this loaf, so I guess it worked- and maybe I learned two lessons this week? One was about pate fermentee, and the other about NOT walking away from the kitchen in the last stage of baking. Some things are best learned the hard way.