The baguette#

Same four ingredients as the tin loaf. Different bread.

Everything that changed is handling and heat.

The formula#

Of that flour, 150 g is pre-fermented overnight as poolish — and 0.15 g of the yeast goes in with it.

Autolyse#

Flour and water alone. 20 to 60 minutes. No salt, no yeast.

• the flour finishes absorbing water instead of being forced to
• gluten begins linking with no mechanical help
• full development on a fraction of the mixing time

Salt tightens gluten. Yeast has nothing useful to do yet.

Poolish#

150 g flour, 150 g water, 0.15 g yeast. Twelve to sixteen hours on the bench.

Flavour you cannot buy in one afternoon, and a dough extensible enough to roll to 45 cm without snapping back.

Domed and webbed is ready. Flat and grey went too far.

Shaping#

Pre-shape loose. Rest 20 minutes. Then shape for real.

Each fold-and-seal stretches the outer surface tighter. The seam is where that tension ends — so pinch it properly shut.

A slack seam holds until the oven, then unzips along the bottom and takes the crumb with it.

Scoring#

Shallow angle, 20–30°. About 5 mm deep. Each cut overlapping the next by a third.

The angle leaves a flap. The flap peels back under oven spring and sets as the grigne.

Vertical cut: no flap, flat slot. Too deep: the skin is gone and the loaf slumps.

Steam, then dry heat#

250 °C. Steam for the first 10 minutes.

Condensing water keeps the surface stretchy while the loaf is still expanding, and gelatinises the starch that dries into the glassy shell.

Vent the oven for the last 10. Dry heat is what browns it.

No steam: the crust sets in two minutes, the scores stay shut, and the loaf comes out pale and small.