Baguettes

This is the crusty baguette from Babble. Um, except for one thing, they were not crusty.  I think this recipe was very misleading.

First off, they say this is a 30 minute crusty baguette.  Unless there is a new measurement for time, there is no way that is correct.  I had to bake these guys for 30 minutes and even then the center was still a tiny bit gummy.  45 minutes would have been more accurate, but at this point Blockette and I were hungry for dinner and didn't want to wait any longer.  I mean the child was wasting away from having to wait an extra 15 minutes.  How could I possibly make her wait another FIFTEEN MINUTES!!

So we ate it as it was.  The bread was good, just not the quick and easy crusty bread I thought I was going to get.  I made the bread so we could use it to sop up the extra spaghetti sauce on our plates.  For this, it did a great job. Yum. I mean freshly made bread is rarely not yum, even if you mess it up.

There was quite a bit of bread leftover so we used the remainder of the bread in grilled cheese sandwiches.  I sliced the loaf horizontally, and spread butter on both sides.  I grilled the flat, interior side until it was brown and crispy.  Then I flipped over the bread and grilled the outside.  While that was happening, I put pieces of thinly sliced cheddar on the flat side of the bread I had just grilled.  Then I topped the whole thing off with Penzey's Sandwich sprinkle. Once the cheese was sufficiently melted and the outside of the bread was nice and toasty I put the 2 sides together and smashed them down to get them to adhere.  If you have a panini press use it, cause that would be faster and more gooder.  (Yeah I said gooder.)

Of course, Mrblocko, ever the ruiner, had to add meat and tomatoes to his sandwich.  He said it was the most delicious sandwich ever in the history of the world but he is a big liar face because we all know that my plain grilled cheese sandwich was the bestest ever.  A ruiner and a liar face.  What AM I going to do with him?

Oh, one more thing.  This recipe was completely off about the amount of flour needed.  It says 3-4 cups of flour.  No way that could be right.  I mean it was only slightly humid out and I needed 6 cups of flour.  And that was just to be able to handle the dough.  It was still extremely wet and shaggy and sticky and unruly.  4 cups?  Do the people who wrote that recipe live in the desert?  The moon?  A vacuum? A Vacuum cleaner?  Well, beware if you try this recipe out.  Just keep adding flour until you can get the dough to behave.

Quick and Crusty French Baguettes from Family Kitchen
2 cups very warm water
1 packet yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
3-4 cups flour

Preheat the oven to 425F. In a large bowl, whisk warm water, yeast, and sugar. Set bowl on top of  preheating oven for 10 min. Stir in salt and add flour a half-cup at a time, til dough becomes soft but not sticky. Knead dough til elastic.

Cut dough into 4 even pieces. Roll each of them into 4 long, thin ropes. Twist together 2 ropes to form 1 loaf. Twist other 2 ropes together to form a 2nd loaf. Transfer both onto a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper.You can now bake the loaf right away or allow to rise for an additional 15-30 min on top of warm oven.

Now for the SECRET: Fill a large bowl with 3-4 c ice. Open hot oven and place baking sheet with  baguettes inside, then toss ice cubes on bottom of oven and quickly shut door. Do NOT open oven for 15 min. Bake til golden brown, 15-18 min. Serve fresh and hot with your favorite olive oil for dipping.