Baguette - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A baguette is "a long thin loaf of French bread

Bread

Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...

" that is commonly made from basic lean dough (the dough, though not the shape, is defined by French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

law). It is distinguishable by its length and crisp crust.

A standard baguette has a diameter of about 5 or 6 cm (2 or 2⅓ in) and a usual length of about 65 cm (24 in), although a baguette can be up to a metre (39 in) long.

History

The word itself was not used to refer to a type of bread until apparently 1920, but what is now known as "baguette" may have existed well before that. Though the baguette today is often considered one of the symbols of French culture viewed from abroad, the association of France with long loaves predates any mention of it. Long, if wide, loaves had been made since the time of Louis XIV, long thin ones since the mid-eighteenth century and in fact by the nineteenth century some were far longer than the baguette: "loaves of bread six feet long that look like crowbars!" (1862); "Housemaids were hurrying homewards with their purchases for various Gallic breakfasts, and the long sticks of bread, a yard or two in length, carried under their arms, made an odd impression upon me." (1898)

Some claim that the baguette is a descendant of the pain viennois, a bread first introduced from Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, towards the mid-19th century. However, this claim seems to be based on a misunderstanding. Though today's pain viennois is long and baguette-like, when first introduced into France, it was, basically, a Kaiser roll

Kaiser roll

The Kaiser roll, also called a Vienna roll or a hard roll , is a kind of bread roll, invented in Vienna, and thought to have been named to honor Emperor Franz Joseph...

. Others claim, less precisely, that it was based on an existing Viennese bread. But no 19th century source confirms this link or the existence of any similar Austrian bread.

A less direct link can be made however with deck ovens, or steam ovens. Deck/steam ovens are a combination of a gas-fired traditional oven and a brick oven, a thick "deck" of stone or firebrick heated by natural gas instead of wood. The first steam oven was brought (in the early nineteenth century) to Paris by the Austrian officer August Zang

August Zang

August Zang, , a nineteenth century Austrian entrepreneur best known for founding the Viennese daily "Die Presse"...

, who also introduced the pain viennois (and the croissant) and whom some French sources thus credit with originating the baguette.

Deck ovens use steam injection, through various methods, to create the proper baguette. The oven is typically well over 205 °C (400 °F). The steam allows the crust to expand before setting, thus creating a lighter, more airy loaf. It also melts the dextrose on the bread's surface, giving a slightly glazed effect.

An article in The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...

states that in October 1920 a law prevented bakers from working before 4am, making it impossible to make the traditional, round loaf in time for customers' breakfasts. The slender baguette, the article claims, solved the problem because it could be prepared and baked much more rapidly. Unfortunately, the article is not sourced and at any rate France had already had long thin breads for over a century at that point.

The law in question appears in fact to be one from March 1919, though some say it took effect on October 1920:
"It is forbidden to employ workers at bread and pastry making between ten in the evening and four in the morning." The rest of the account remains to be verified, but the use of the word for a long thin bread does appear to be a twentieth century innovation.

Manufacture and styles

The "baguette de tradition française" is made from wheat flour, water, yeast, and common salt. It does not contain additives, but it may contain broad bean flour (max 2%), soya flour (max 0.5%), wheat malt flour (max 0.3%). Standard baguettes however may contain a certain number of additives. Depending on those used either in the original flour or in making the bread itself, a baguette (or any other French bread) may not be considered either vegan or kosher.

While a regular baguette is made with a direct addition of baker's yeast

Baker's yeast

Baker's yeast is the common name for the strains of yeast commonly used as a leavening agent in baking bread and bakery products, where it converts the fermentable sugars present in the dough into carbon dioxide and ethanol...

, it is not unusual for artisan-style loaves to be made with a poolish, "biga

Biga (bread baking)

Biga is a type of pre-ferment used in Italian baking. Many popular Italian breads, including ciabatta, are made using a biga. Using a biga adds complexity to the bread's flavour and is often used in breads which need a light, open texture with holes...

" or other bread pre-ferments to increase flavor complexity and other characteristics, as well as the addition of whole wheat flour

Whole wheat flour

Whole wheat flour is a powdery substance derived by grinding or mashing the wheat's whole grain. It is used in baking but typically added to other "white" flours to provide nutrients , texture, and body to the finished product....

or other grains such as rye

Rye

Rye is a grass grown extensively as a grain and as a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe and is closely related to barley and wheat. Rye grain is used for flour, rye bread, rye beer, some whiskeys, some vodkas, and animal fodder...

. French bread is required by law to avoid preservatives, and as a result bread goes stale in under 24 hours, thus baking baguettes is a daily occurrence, unlike sourdough

Sourdough

Sourdough is a dough containing a Lactobacillus culture, usually in symbiotic combination with yeasts. It is one of two principal means of biological leavening in bread baking, along with the use of cultivated forms of yeast . It is of particular importance in baking rye-based breads, where yeast...

bread which is baked generally once or twice a week, due to the natural preservatives in a sourdough starter.

Baguettes are closely connected to France

France

and especially to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, though they are made around the world. In France, not all long loaves are baguettes; for example, a short, almost rugby ball shaped loaf is a bâtard (literally, bastard), or a "torpedo loaf" in English (its origin is variously explained, but undocumented), another tubular shaped loaf is known as a flûte (also known in the United States as a parisienne) flûtes closely resemble baguettes and weigh more or less than these, depending on the region, and a thinner loaf is called a ficelle (string). (None of these are officially defined either legally or, for instance, in major dictionaries, any more than the baguette itself.) French breads are also made in forms such as a miche, which is a large pan loaf, and a boule
Boule (bread)
Boule, from the French for "ball", is a traditional shape of French bread, resembling a squashed ball. It is a rustic loaf shape that can be made of any type of flour. A boule can be leavened with commercial yeast, chemical leavening, or even wild yeast sourdough.-External links:*...

, literally ball in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, a large round loaf. Sandwich-sized loaves are sometimes known as demi-baguettes, tiers, or sometimes "Rudi rolls".

Baguettes, either relatively short single-serving size or cut from a longer loaf, are very often used for sandwich

Sandwich

A sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...

es (usually of the submarine sandwich

Submarine sandwich

A submarine sandwich, also known as a sub among other names, is a sandwich that consists of a long roll of Italian or French bread, split lengthwise either into two pieces or opened in a "V" on one side, and filled with various varieties of meat, cheese, vegetables, seasonings, and sauces. The...

type, but also panini); Baguettes are often sliced and served with pâté

Pâté

Pâté is a mixture of ground meat and fat minced into a spreadable paste. Common additions include vegetables, herbs, spices, and either wine or cognac, armagnac or brandy...

or cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

. As part of the traditional continental breakfast in France, slices of baguette are spread with butter

Butter

Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...

and jam and dunked in bowls of coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

or hot chocolate

Hot chocolate

Hot chocolate is a heated beverage typically consisting of shaved chocolate, melted chocolate or cocoa powder, heated milk or water, and sugar...

. In the United States, French Bread loaves are sometimes split in half to make French bread pizza

Pizza

Pizza is an oven-baked, flat, disc-shaped bread typically topped with a tomato sauce, cheese and various toppings.Originating in Italy, from the Neapolitan cuisine, the dish has become popular in many parts of the world. An establishment that makes and sells pizzas is called a "pizzeria"...

.

Baguettes are generally made as partially free-form loaves, with the loaf formed with a series of folding and rolling motions, raised in cloth-lined baskets or in rows on a flour-impregnated towel, called a couche, and baked either directly on the hearth of a deck oven or in special perforated pans designed to hold the shape of the baguette while allowing heat through the perforations. These pans are never used in artisan-style baking, only in the Americanized version of the traditional baking process, which commonly uses frozen bread dough, sometimes called "thaw and bake", generally a cut-down among artisan-style bakers. Generally American style "French Bread" is much fatter, generally meaning over-proofed, and also scored incorrectly according to French baking tradition and not baked in deck ovens, but in convection oven

Convection oven

Although the word convection is usually used to describe the natural circulation of gas or liquid caused by temperature differences, the convection in "convection oven" has a more general definition: the transfer of heat via movement of gas or liquid...

s. The resulting loaf is much larger, softer, less chewy, and possessing a much more even crumb structure, in contrast to the traditional baguette which is slender, chewy, possesses an uneven and holey crumb structure, and crispy crust.

Outside France, baguettes are also made with other doughs; for example, the Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

ese bánh mì
Bánh mì
Bánh mì or bánh mỳ is a Vietnamese term for all kinds of bread. Bread, or more specifically the baguette, was introduced by the French during its colonial period. The bread most commonly found in Vietnam is single serve and resembles a torpedo, therefore the term bánh mì is synonymous with this...

uses a high proportion of rice flour

Rice flour

Rice flour is a form of flour made from finely milled rice. It is distinct from rice starch, which is usually produced by steeping rice in lye....

, while many North American bakeries make whole wheat, multigrain, and sourdough baguettes alongside French-style loaves. In addition, even classical French-style recipes vary from place to place, with some recipes adding small amounts of milk

Milk

Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...

, butter, sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

, or malt extract depending on the desired flavour and properties in the final loaf.

External links

About the Baguette - an investigation into the origin of the baguette

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Manufacture and styles

See also

Further reading

External links