This was a both gratifying, exciting and delicious adventure in baking for me. I have never made, or even really thought of trying, to bake baguettes. I mean, come on. I’m surrounded by boulangeries on every side, the tempting aroma of baking bread wafting through the air and all through the neighbourhood. Baking your own baguette in France just seems so, well, extravagant.
But I did it. I was thrilled at how easy and delicious they turned out. I can see the danger in baking these, because now I want to bake them all the time!
This is much less of a time-commitment than the Pane Siciliano I posted about last week. You can make your poolish up to three days before using, you just mix it up and leave it in the fridge. Bread baking day is a little more complicated because of the 3 rises, but it was pretty easy to choreograph into my day. And worth it. So worth it.
This bread has been YeastSpotted!
Musings From The Fishbowl 
Yay! I love that it made you laugh!
Oh yes, I must go back! Not sure when it’ll happen (my gentleman friend is going to France without me this summer), but it *will* happen sooner or later, that’s for sure! 🙂
Wow! The HH would worship you–baguette is his favorite bread. I’m not much of a bread person, but I bet I’d like yours. 😉
These baguettes look fantastic! If I were guaranteed that mine would come out like that, I would make them all the time as well.
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I understand, I totally understand! I want to make baguettes all the time, too!
My first DB challenge was Julia Child’s French bread. I haven’t made a poolish before, but I bet it gives it an amazing sourdough taste….yum! Something else to add to the list of things I need to bake!
Libby – the poolish does indeed give it a nice little “something”, making it very different from a normal white flour baguette. It seems more like a whole wheat sourdough baguette, which is fun.
My mouth is watering. Yum…
Isn’t it satisfying to make at home things that you are used to buying? Even when those you buy are delicious and made by artisans – or come from the most famous bakery in town (I just had a flashback of our “oh, Frédéric Cassel!” silliness of last year!) – they don’t come with the feeling you get when you make them yourself. I bet those baguettes were amazing!
I am laughing out loud here – “oohhh! Frédéric Cassel!”. You must come back!
It’s been too long since I made my own baguettes. When I was in culinary school I took a baking class, where we made fresh baguettes every day. We were allowed to take leftover bread home with us, so I would bring a whole baguette back to the dorm with me and I’d eat the whole thing in like 2 days.
I made my first baguette from a recipe in Julia Child’s MtAoFC, and what stood out the most is how she went on and on about how you can’t even buy a proper baguette pan or something in France, because there are so many boulangeries around that baking your own baguette is simply inconceivable.