The French Baguette

 Just think about France, then French food... what's so special and also so basic in French food?

The French Baguette!! This is the French favourite snack, with butter, cheese, pâté, ham, meat or whatever else... to dip into a nice sauce or just because you like it for its punchy crust followed by the soft crumb! 10 billions* of baguette are eaten each year in France, that means about 27,6 millions baguettes each day!!! In short, this is very common food in France, but most people just buy it in the bakery every morning. I have to say, this is much easier than making it by yourself! But here in New Zealand, it's not so easy to find a French baguette, so today I have decided to make it by myself! This is not so difficult, but it's a very technical work that has to be followed meticulously to make the perfect baguette you want!

Preparation time: 4 hours (variable)
Baking time: 20 min

Ingredients:

500g flour

350ml warm water

2 teaspoon dry yeast

1 teaspoon of salt

Just as simple as that!

Method:
Dilute the yeast into 50ml of warm water and rest for 20 min. Prepare the flour and the salt in a big bowl and make a hole where to put the diluted yeast, and mix together. Add the rest of the water gradually and mix. The dough will be sticky but don't add more flour. Knead the doug for at least 20 min, and then make a ball. Cover and let rise for 20 min.

After 20 min

Then, raise the dough delicately while turning the bowl. This manipulation aims to loosen the dough from the bowl and thus strengthen it.

Before the manipulation

After the manipulation

 

Repeat this manipulation every 20 min, 5 times (about 1h30). You should see some bubble on the surface of the dough.

Then let rise for one more hour.

Divide the dough into 3 equal parts and make 3 balls very delicately, not to break the bubbles. Wait for 20 min and then lengthen each ball from left to right to make the baguettes (kind of sticks) and let rise for 20 min.

During these last 20 min, preheat the oven to 230° with a cookie pan filled with water on the bottom of the oven.
Make several incisions on the baguettes (for a nice crust), moisten sligthly the uncooked baguette and put in the middle of the oven. Turn down the temperature to 210°, let the cookie pan with the water and bake for 20 min. You can easily bake up to 2 baguette a time.

Don't wait too much to eat your fresch French baguette as they are even better whel still warm! Enjoy, you are just in France!

*source: http://www.planetoscope.com

First stop: my native region in France - a traditional baking recipe of brioche

Because I am a French native newly settled in New Zealand and because I miss some of our French baking specialities, my first recipe will be a French baking recipe: the "brioche tressée".
The dough I use is from a traditional recipe from east of France, my native region, Alsace, that we usually bake for Saint Nicolas dinner on the 6th of December. Saint Nicolas is particularly well celebrated in Nancy in the French region of Meurthe-et-Moselle, as well as in the region of Alsace.

Saint Nicolas

Le palais des grands ducs, Place Stanislas, Nancy

Mannele d'Alsace

For this occasion in Alsace, we bake little men (called "Mannele" in the local dialect) with the dough as shown on the picture below. But I love using this recipe to make a "Brioche tressée" which is also a delicious kind of sweet and soft bread appreciable for the breakfast or snack tea, nature or with spreaded butter and/or jam.




I made one brioche few days ago to share with some kiwi women of the playgroup where I take my son every week. I served it with some homemade guavastrawberry jam. Out of the 20+ slices, no one left!
So here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

- 500g flour

- 110g sugar

- 100g butter

- 25g baking yeast

- 2 eggs

- 200g milk

- 5g salt

- 1 yolk

- 80g icing sugar

- 2 teaspoon of hot water

Preparation time: 3 hours+
Cooking time: 20-25 minutes

Method:
Prepare the sourdough with 100g of flour. Mix with the yeast previously diluted in 100g of warm milk. It is very important the milk is not too hot because it would kill the yeast power and your dough would not blow up. Cover the sourdough with a clean teatowel and let rise 20 minutes.

During these 20 minutes, put the remaining 100g of milk in a pot with the butter, the sugar and the salt. Cook gently. Make sure you do not boil the milk and the butter. Let cool.


Then add this preparation to the sourdough and knead. Add the two eggs and the rest of the flour, and knead for at least 15 minutes. It is very important you work the dough energically. Cover the dough with a clean teatowel and let rise 1 hour at least. it is better if the temperature of the room is warm, or you can let it rise in a warm oven (do not forget to turn it off before you put the dough in).

Divide the dough into 3 equal parts and roll them before you "plait" them. Let rise it one more hour in the oven. Then glaze the brioche with the yolk.
 

Bake in the oven previously warmed up to 180° for 20-25 minutes. The crust must be soft and brown.


To finish, mix icing sugar and the hot water to get the icing and spread it on the brioche when still warm.
It's ready to eat when cold. You can serve it nature, with your favorite jam or simply butter. Enjoy with a cup of nice coffee, tea, or even better with a hot chocolate, like if you are a winter afternoon/evening when the sun has already set in East of France!

Brioche tressée