I’ve been making baguettes for years, and the results have been decent, but I’ve never been fully satisfied. So for today’s bread, I decided to stray away from the Bernard Clayton book and go to the ultimate source for french bread: Julia Child herself. I dug out Edward’s copy of Julia’s The Way to Cook, which has elaborate, precise instructions for French bread (whether in baguette form or round). I resolved to follow her instructions down to the littlest minutae, in the hopes of making a great French baguette.
The outcome? Well, it’s pretty good, but still not perfect. The taste is top-notch, and the texture is just about right, but the volume of the loaves isn’t substantial enough. I don’t know if that’s because the yeast didn’t perform properly or because I somehow got the volume of ingredients wrong. Sigh. My quest is not over. In the meantime, here’s an amusing video of Julia observing a French baker in Paris. http://http://video.pbs.org/video/2262589124/
