Today we woke up and craved a really good baguette…really good french bread, but there were no bakeries nearby so we decided to make it ourselves. It is amazing how few ingredients there are: flour, yeast, water and salt! But there were a lot of steps (and a lot of kneading) but the end result was worth it. Plus the house smelled SO good when it is baking. Mom says the best smell in the world is the smell of home made bread baking in the oven.
The first steps were mixing the ingredients together. First you use a mixer but then you have to do it by hand:
Then you have to divide the dough in two and let it rise for an hour.
Before it rose
After it rose…
Then you knead it again, roll each ssection of dough into a rectangle and the roll that up to form a long baguette. Then, of course, you have to let that rise.
Finally after another hour, the loaves are ready to bake but you have to brush them with egg white to give them a crust. And half way through the baking you have to brush them AGAIN!!