How to Make a Basic Baguette | Video Recipe
This video will teach you how to make a great baguette in almost any oven.
Standardized Recipe
Tools Used In This Video
- Plastic Bowl Scrapper
- Baker's Razor (Lame)
- Baguette Molds
- Escali Digital Gram Scale
- 2" Hotel Pans
- "Bench Knife" or Dough Scraper (Used for portioning dough and scraping work surface).
| This post is part of our ongoing Bread Baking Video Series, which teaches a wide array of baking techniques and recipes. For more information, you can also view our How To Cook Video Index. |
My question is are:
1. Are you baking on a normal oven or are you using a convection oven?
2. What would be the difference/benefits between baking on a normal oven versus a convection oven? _ Thank you.
Jorge
1) In the video I'm baking in a conventional oven (no fan).
2) Convection ovens are great for baking because they have a fan (usually located at the back) that circulate hot air throughout the oven. Even ovens that have high quality seals on their doors will still be hotter at the back then they are at the front because some heat will always escape through the door even when closed. A convection fan circulates hot air, so the hot spots in your oven aren't as noticeable.
In this video you'll notice that I rotate the pans 180 degrees and top to bottom. This is to counteract the fact that my oven, like most conventional or "normal ovens," have natural hot spots. The rotating of the pans allows for even baking.
So in short, if you're using a convection fan, you may or may not have to rotate your baking pans (depends on how efficient your fan is) although I would still recommend it if you notice that the bread is browning unevenly. What's more important though, is that the heat delivery with a convection oven is much more efficient, so even though you might still need to rotate your pans, you'll probably either (a), find that you need to bake at a slightly lower temperature (standard rule of thumb is 25ºF less) or for slightly less time (usually by about 5-10 minutes) depending on your oven. If I had to choose one, I would say drop your oven temp by 25ºF and still rotate your pans as demonstrated in the video.
Let me know if you have any more questions.
Jacob