Bread Dough

//Exceptionnally this recipe is in English because if you start doing it you are going to have to share it with all your friends :).

(based on the recipe in French here: http://www.tillthecat.com/2013/05/recette-de-baguette-de-pain-maison/).

Active preparation time: 10 minutes Passive preparation time: 2-3 hours Cooking time: 30-45 minutes (depending on oven)

For 4 baguettes:

Ingrédients

Extensions: - 15g of brown sesame

dilute the yeast in some of the water (I usually start with 100g of water). It is important that the yeast is well dissolved.
add the rest of the water
mix together the flour and salt in a salad bowl, add the watery yeast mix (if you want to put sesame, now is the time)
with a wooden spoon, mix. It does not have to be fast or during a long time. Just mix it like a cake dough.
cover with a wet cloth and let it rest for at least 2 hours (not in the fridge).

[pause]

get it out of the dish, cut in four so that it gives the form of a baguette
let it rest while the oven is preheating (we found that 460F was nice without convection, ours here has convection, 450 seems enough)
during preheating (and cooking), put a pan in the oven with water in it so that the interior of the oven has high humidity
put some flour on top of each baguettes (it will give a sexy "old-fashioned look")
before putting in the oven, do some cuts on top of the baguettes with scissors
cook for 30 minutes (with convection, generally we let it 40/45 minutes without convection), until the baguettes have a nice golden touch.

Bread freezes well. You can freeze any left-over, then put it in a toaster then eat it at breakfeast with salted butter!