baking french bread

Yesterday, I decided to give the 4 hour french baguette recipe, featured in this months Saveur magazine a try.

So I mixed hot water and yeast (I had to use my meat thermometer for the water temperature so it was a bit of a guess), added flour and salt

and kneaded. My dough looked much wetter than the pictures in the magazine and while I was tempted to add a bunch of flour I only used the flour sprinkled on the counter to ease the stickiness. Then waited. Then shaped. And waited. Then shaped some more and waited.

Then baked. And voila. Three baguettes.

 I didn't have either ice cubes or a cast iron pan so I used a regular baking pan and cold water instead. The ends of the loaves were a bit questionable as they were longer than the parchment so fell into the oven rack and left the baguettes with knob like ends. So note to self, keep the loaves to the parchment paper size next time. But overall, I'm happy with the result for my first attempt.