Bread at Home

I'm not a baker; that's my wife's job. I don't typically like dough, I avoid her stand mixer like it was plagued, and you'll never find me spending much time with flour or sugar. But tonight we put our levain to good use and created some great baguettes, as you can see in the picture.

When we were in France, the absolute best meal we had was a simple baguette with Brie. The problem with a baguette is that the crispy, crackled outside is brought on by a burst of steam introduced into the oven. The steam causes the skin to crisp up, while leaving the inside of the baguette nice and soft.

Luckily there are ways to achieve this at home. To accomplish this, my wife and I rolled out our baguettes, mercilessly slashed them with a razor, then prepped our oven.

At 460 degrees, our oven has never run so hot. At the bottom we placed a bread pan, into which we placed a couple of ice cubes. This causes the oven to be "moistened" but not steamed. Once the bread is on the stone, you then ladle boiling water into a red-hot cast-iron pan you've had at the bottom of the oven heating away. This causes a burst of steam as you slam the oven door shut.

Once the bread has risen and crisped up, you'll have some great baguettes at home.

I also finally got out my real camera...