Baguette with Spelt and Sourdough

This way of making baguettes is inspired by (again) Weekend Bakery's recipe of their 80% hydration baguettes, but I use sourdough and some spelt and less water (70% hydration).
I am very satisfied with the result: the crust is great and the baguettes taste wonderful!

Poolish:

- 100 g spelt flour
- 200 g wheat flour
- 300 g water
- 15 g sourdough culture

Start the evening before baking the baguettes by making the poolish: mix the ingredients in a bowl and cover it by using a plastic pedal bin liner. Keep the poolish for an hour at room temperature and then put it in the fridge during the night. The next morning you can let your poolish develop at room temperature again and leave it until you start making your baguettes (let's say at noon, so you will have fresh bread at 4.00 PM).

Ingredients:

- the poolish
- 300 g wheat flour
- 120 g water
- 10 g salt
- 3 g dry yeast

Mix the poolish with the flour and the water and let this 'not-yet-dough' rest for half an hour at room temperature. This process is called autolyse. After this autolyse add the salt and the dry yeast and knead the dough for about 8 to 10 minutes. Check my previous post about making Sourdough Bread with Spelt for the kneading technique I learned from Richard Bertinet.
Put the dough in a bowl, cover it with plastic and let it rest for 3 quarters of an hour on a rack on the warming plate of the Aga.
Take out the dough and do 2 complete stretch and folds (see my post about Sourdough Bread again for this technique) and put the dough back in the bowl. Cover it and let it rest for 45 minutes on the warming plate. Repeat this procedure 2 times, but one complete stretch and fold will do. So all together 3 stretch and folds and 2 and a half hours rest.
Now take out the dough, put it on a slightly floured working surface and divide it in 3 portions. Preshape the portions by flattening them and fold them 3 times so they look like miniature baguettes. Let them rest on the working surface for 10 minutes, covered with plastic, before you roll them out to shape them. Check this YouTube instruction video by Jeff Hamelman how to preshape and shape baguettes.
Now it is time for proofing: I use a well floured thick cotton tea towel for this, the way Hamelman shows in his instruction video. Let you your baguettes proof for about half an hour.
Score them 5 times (instruction video) and bake them in a very humid roasting oven for about 35 minutes.

French croissants "the Hamelman way"

As I explained before, I think that bread should only consist of flour, water, salt and yeast. But... I am fond of croissants and Ed and Marieke inspired me by publishing their great croissants making video. So I started to make croissants "the Hamelman way" a few weeks ago for the first time in my Aga. It was a disaster! The croissants were ugly, the butter was far to warm and emerging through the dough, my working surface was greasy and sticky, etc. Next week I tried again: disaster number 2. Ugly croissants, but they tasted great! This weekend I followed the instructions from the Weekend Bakery more strictly and the result is satisfying.

How did I do it?

Dough:

- 500 g wheat flour

- 140 ml cold water

- 140 ml cold milk

- 50 g sugar

- 40 g soft (salted) butter

- 11 g dry yeast

- 8 g salt

Further:

- a packet of cold (salted) butter (250 g)

- 1 egg for the egg wash 

The evening before baking the croissants you prepare the dough. Mix the ingredients and knead it for a few minutes so it becomes a nice, homogeneous dough. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest during the night in the fridge.

The next day, take the butter from the fridge and place it on a piece of baking paper on a cold working surface. Slice the butter with a cold knife in 8 slices of 1.25 cm thick: as the butter in Holland is sold in packets that measure 7 cm x 3 cm x 10 cm, you can form an almost square: 12 x 14 cm. Now put another piece of baking paper on top and pound the butter with a rolling pin until it measures 19 x 19 cm. It has to become a perfect square, use a knife to shape the edges, pound it again, use a knife again.... success! Put the butter in the fridge again.

Now take out the dough from the fridge, flour your working surface lightly and roll out the dough to a perfect square, measured 27 x 27 cm.

Take out the butter square from the fridge (it has to be cold but still pliable) and place it on the dough: the points of the butter square have to be centered along the sides of the dough. Now fold the dough over the butter, like an envelope. The dough must cover the butter entirely. You end up with a perfect square dough, with the butter completely sealed inside. Hamelman published some very instructive pictures on this site.

Now flour your dough lightly on both sides and roll it out, very gently, to a piece which measures about 20 x 60 cm. Fold it letter style: pick up one short end of the dough and fold it back over the dough, leaving one third of the other end of dough exposed. Then fold the exposed dough over the folded side. Put the dough on a baking sheet, cover it with plastic wrap and put it for 20 minutes in your freezer for relaxing and chilling.

Repeat the rolling and folding and freezing two more times, every time rolling the dough until it measures about 20 x 60 cm. Put your dough in plastic again and put it in your fridge.
The next morning it is time to make your croissants! Take the dough from the fridge and roll it out on a lightly floured working surface to a piece of 20 x 112 cm. Take your time for it and press your rolling pin only lightly. Now you can cut 15 triangles out of the dough: the short side of the triangles measure 12,5 cm, both long sides measure about 22 cm. Roll the triangles into croissants, brush them with the egg wash (made of the egg and a tablespoon of water) and let them proof on a rack on the warming plate of your Aga for almost 2 hours. Bake them in your roasting oven for only 4 or 5 minutes, transfer them to the baking oven and let them bake for another 12 to 15 minutes.

The best video to watch on YouTube about making croissants is of course this one: the late and great Julia Child!

Pain Rustique

Besides spelt bread I am fond of Pain Rustique. There are many recipes to be found, but I use the method published by Ed and Marieke (Weekend Bakery). This bread is a little sour by using rye-based sourdough culture and it needs only a little bit of yeast. Because of using sourdough I make a poolish the evening before making the bread, so I can start baking the next morning. For making a sourdough culture yourself, please check one of my previous posts.

Poolish:
- 225 g wheat flour
- 60 g whole wheat flour
- 280 g water
- 12 g sourdough culture

Mix the ingredients in a bowl and cover it (I always put the bowl in a transparent pedal bin liner) and let it rest during the night at room temperature. The next morning you can start making the Pain Rustique:

Ingredients:
- the poolish
- 275 g wheat flour
- 90 g water
- 10 g salt
 - 3 g dry yeast

Mix the poolish with the flour and the water for only a minute, just until the flour has absorbed the water. Now cover the bowl and let it rest for half an hour. After this you can add the salt and the yeast and start kneading on a flat, clean surface (don't use any extra flour at this stage!) until the dough is ready. It needs some experience to understand when you reach this 'ready'-point: the dough turns into a soft, flexible substance and shines a little. And yes, it is (very) wet... It usually takes about 5 minutes kneading. Again I mention Richard Bertinet, whose method I use for kneading. You can find an instruction video on YouTube: The Bertinet Method. You can also check my post about making Spelt Bread for more information about kneading wet dough.
Now transfer your dough to a clean bowl, cover it and let it rest for about 40 minutes at room temperature.
Now it is time for the stretch-and-fold technique: take out the dough and place it on your work surface. Don't use any flour yet: just your hands and a clean dough-scraper. Put your scraper partly under the dough and stretch it by using your free hand. Fold the stretched part over the dough. Now do this four times: up over under, left over right, under over up and right over left. A great instruction video you can find here.
After this stretch and fold the dough goes back in the bowl for another half hour's rest on room temperature.
After this a second stretch and fold and another half hour's rest.
Now it is time for shaping your bread and for the first time you can use some flour to make the dough easier to handle. Put your dough on a floured work surface and sprinkle some flour on it. Now shape the dough with your floured hands. For Pain Rustique I form it into a batard and put it in a cane banneton to proof for at least half an hour. For proofing I put the banneton (covered in plastic) on a rack on the warming plate of my Aga. My oval banneton I ordered at the Weekend Bakery Webshop: it works very well!
The best instruction video you can find on YouTube for shaping bread is probably this one.
After proofing and scoring the bread with a razor blade it is time for the Aga: bake the bread in the roasting oven for about 45 minutes. In my post about baking Spelt Bread I described how I use my roasting oven for baking bread. Don't forget to create steam by pouring some hot water in a baking tin.