So why are baguettes in France so much better?

[Solo Banana]

I started my career as a night baker,I remember an old Sous Chef told me once that there were 2 reasons for baguettes uniqueness-

Firstly the flour,but most important was the wooden table top used for proving the dough and knocking back-made from a specific type of French wood,enzymes transferred from wood to dough added a unique flavour and texture profile.

Added to this fact-good bakers are born,not made and the innate instinct to judge your mix by touch ,feel,smell as well as love for living dough will always make the difference

[rgural]

Solo:

I imagine there are very few bakeries that proof dough on a table top. If they do, they're either not very busy, or have an enormous amount of table space. In the majority of french bakeries the baguette dough never touches a wooden table at all- it goes from the mixing bowl, into plastic buckets, divided by machine, into a balancelle, shaped by machine and then proofed on couche.

The flour plays a role, and it is different in france, but bakers in america, japan, canada, etc. have shown that excellent french bread can be made in various climates and with different basic materials.

Roger

[Solo Banana]

RGURAL-

I once visited a major bread production plant-producing quick frozen pre proved french baguettes as well as other breads for most of Southern Africa-those guys took the trouble to import a massive wooden table from France specifically for the proving of the baguette dough for this plant at least, the wood was a major issue.

As well it is interesting to note that they only hired bakers from french speaking africa to mix and handle the dough.

[Lesley C]

I just wanted to let the people who posted on this thread know that I asked the initial question to our Q&A guest this week, James MacGuire, and he has suplied a very interesting -- and probably unexpected -- answer.

Have a look.

[Marcel]

"P.P.S. And - truth be told - as good as bolillos are, neither they nor "good ol' American" hot dog buns, can hold a candle to a proper German Broetchen for wrapping around a Wurst, sausage, wiener, or 'dog.'"

(M) Your posting, Chef Ptomaine, dates back to 2004. Iread it in pursuit of a true Broetchen recipe. Can you point me to one?

Vielen Dank,

Marcel

[Truc]

Oh the good ol' baguette. When i first arrived in France it was the first things that I got, along with some camembert and Jam. So delicious. It was umcomparabel to any other breads that I have tried. You cant get that quality here. Im a little spoiled though because i worked in a kitchen in France and we always had an array of different bread and I was always learning about a new product they had in France that i have never seens before. In the restaurant (quite small maybe 70 covers on a normal night not big enough to justify producing out own bread) we had these petit pain smaped like little tiny baguettes that we would heat up inthe oven before service from the freezer. They were absolutley delicious though just the right amount of crisp crust and soft and fragrant interior. At the end of the night My favourit part would be taking a few and eating it with some cheese or "rosette" or other cold cuts i could find in our staff fridge. MMmmMmm it hit the spot thats for sure after a long shift.... Even my friends from italy when asked that they will miss the most about french food (although very proud of their italian food) they said it would the bread.

It will be interesting when my very good friend the pastry chef from France moves to montreal (boulanger by trade). I will go visit him and ask him about this. After we crack open a bottle of wine hes gonna smuggle back with him and that wheel of cheese tucked safely in his jacket LOL! (Who knew the french do smell! Just kidding!)

[Baggy]

To return to the original question, in my view it is mostly down to the choice of flour and the technique. Prepared on a similar basis, French flour tends to be creamy with a full taste; hard wheat flours tend to be whiter, and slightly harsh, with an almost metallic taste.

Techniques used with hard wheat flours tend to involve slow fermentation methods which help to neutralise the metallic taste. Additionally, when starters are used (particularly long, slow starters such as sourdough) then flavour of the flour is less important and bread will have a more translucent sheen, larger, irregular holes and generally be chewy.

Sourdoughs as used in the US will produce a bread with a distinctive taste (often sour, or mildly so); French sourdough (levain) is considered to be technically at fault if it has a sour taste, even though the technique and appearance of the bread is basically the same. Larger French breads shaped as a boule, such as the Poilâne loaf are almost always prepared with a starter and many are known for their long-keeping qualities (same as for sourdoughs).

[nb this comment does not apply to rye-breads, where a sour is technically necessary to produce a loaf of good volume; but then French rye breads rarely have more than 65% rye flour]

On the other hand there is also the technical side to the flour. French flours are generally weak compared with hard wheat flours and generally used with ascorbic acid to strengthen the dough, particularly with poorer quality wheat. This gives breads better eye-appeal with greater volume and marginally longer storage times. Unfortunately, the addition of ascorbic acid reduces the natural wheat flavour (why, I don’t know).

This brings me to the more contentious part. In France, the spread of franchises and branded baguettes means more bakers are using ‘franchised’ flour e.g. Banette and Rétrodor. Unfortunately, the flour used seems to have less taste than flour from other national mills with an established reputation (e.g. Viron flour). Whilst information on the sources and types of wheat is not easily available, one might suspect that some flours have higher levels of ascorbic acid to make it easier for bakers.

If you accept the relentless advances of franchised bakery within France (Banette claims over 800 branded bakeries), it is very possible to travel widely and not actually taste an authentic, regionally sourced baguette.

But it also means that coming across an authentic tasting baguette in the US has to start with the baker having access to high quality European flour. Do you think this might help go some way to explaining the problem?

[Franci]

I don't know if it is the flour, the water, the weather or the skills but I lived 6 years in the States:

1 year in San Francisco, 1 year at 5 minutes from King Arthur's bakery and 3 years and half in NY.

I cannot recall a memorable bread. King Arthur's bread was decent to me, not memorable.

Americans breads are simply not to my taste. In Paris I cannot stop eating baguettes as in Milan I cannot stop eating michette and when I am there I keep asking myself how can bread be so good...

Personal opinion, everybody decides for himself.

[Baggy]

Franci, I’m in agreement. My experience is based largely on the differences in flour, which I make into bread myself.

If buying bread then there are additional horrors that really detract from the taste. These include preservatives to kill off fungal growth so that bread will keep for two weeks sealed in a plastic bag.

From a taste viewpoint, the main ingredient that seems to pervade much of the mass produced bread (and most food) in the US is corn syrup and its derivatives. Not only does it add a faintly sweet flavour, but it also has an unmistakeable aroma that masks the other ingredients. I believe that there are moves to reduce/remove corn syrup on grounds of both taste and health (some experts believe that the types of sugars in corn syrup may stimulate obesity).

But I would also add that bread in the UK typically does not achieve a good standard. Having bought a breadmaker a few years ago and tasted the difference immediately, I have not bought another standard loaf from the supermarket.

Now having made my own French breads from French flour, I would not buy a French loaf either (artisan or not).

I do buy ciabatta but only because I haven’t had the time to work out a reliable recipe (and no more room in the freezer for storage).

[Baggy]

Another observation.

I made another batch of baguettes from my trusted bag of Viron Classique Bleu T55 French flour, but using more water than usual (68% rather than the usual 62%).

I can report that additional water kills the creamy taste of the flour.

So if a US baker uses authentic French flour, but adapts it to the normal practice of adding more water to give a highly hydrated dough, then the baguette won’t have the typical French taste.

[stovetop]

Hi:

This might be a stupid interjection but do the French roll their baguettes by hand or do they use a machine?

This will come back to the point when I find out this one fact

Thank you Steve

Jerichocafe

[nduran]

I had no idea so many people hated our sourdough. Have the people who are complaining so loudly ever actually been to San Francisco or are they passing judgement on all the products which are simply sold as "San Francisco Sourdough" in supermarkets across the country?

[Baggy]

I’m sure someone with intimate knowledge of French bakeries can inform us properly. But as I have heard, small typical village bakeries make up their baguettes by hand. Almost everyone has a mixer these days – which is a big advantage.

What I love about French village bakeries is that when the bread is sold, the baker shuts up the shop! Logical, but frustrating that because of limited oven/prep space they don’t have room to make a second batch and, with bread prices being so low, there is no scope for making a second batch just in case a few passing visitors come by.

In larger towns with industrial bakeries, machines are often used for making up baguettes. Usually these bakeries also wholesale to restaurants and patisserie/bakery outlets to get enough volume to pay the capital investment. I believe that there are specially adapted machines for rolling the fragile baguette dough, giving a good tension, but without damaging the bubble structure.

You can find these machines in the US and UK, but without comparing side-by-side with the same dough make-up, I have no idea how comparable they are in making up baguettes.

[Baggy]

I’m not sure that everyone likes pickles,nduran, so why should everyone like sourdough?

What I think is great about sourdough, is the foods that it matches with. The sourness often lifts sweetened foods (a bit sweet-sour). It’s my impression that, generally, food in the States both purchased from the supermarket and bought in restaurants, seems to have more sugar and pairs well with the sourdough taste.

I am less taken with sourdoughs in the UK as the food – bread pairing doesn’t seem to work so well.

As I hinted at in an earlier post, sourdoughs are technically necessary for rye breads, but for other bread made from wheat flour, it’s a personal choice and I love the variety.

[nduran]

I’m not sure that everyone likes pickles,nduran, so why should everyone like sourdough?

I never said that everyone should like it, I was simply perplexed by the number of people claiming to despise it so vehemently and was curious to know what specifically they were basing their opinions on. I've had "San Francisco Sourdough" in Texas, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado and New York that was absolutely inedible and in no way indicative of what you would find at even the most pedestrian of bakeries in the city itself. I don't know where any of that stuff comes from, but it IS ridiculously tart and it also leaves this disgusting, yeasty taste in your mouth for hours (sometimes days) afterward.

[Baggy]

I agree – good bread is hard to find in any country!

[Busboy]

I’m sure someone with intimate knowledge of French bakeries can inform us properly.  But as I have heard, small typical village bakeries make up their baguettes by hand.  Almost everyone has a mixer these days – which is a big advantage. 

What I love about French village bakeries is that when the bread is sold, the baker shuts up the shop!  Logical, but frustrating that because of limited oven/prep space they don’t have room to make a second batch and, with bread prices being so low, there is no scope for making a second batch just in case a few passing visitors come by.

In larger towns with industrial bakeries, machines are often used for making up baguettes.  Usually these bakeries also wholesale to restaurants and patisserie/bakery outlets to get enough volume to pay the capital investment.  I believe that there are specially adapted machines for rolling the fragile baguette dough, giving a good tension, but without damaging the bubble structure.

You can find these machines in the US and UK, but without comparing side-by-side with the same dough make-up, I have no idea how comparable they are in making up baguettes.

←

My experience in small French towns is that, more often than not, the baguettes suck. I assume that they are bought pre-fabricated from a wholesaler and merely finished in the bakery. I have much better luck at the markets, where a better, regional baker will truck their wares in, though decent bread will occasionally appear off the beaten track.

While we're on the subject, anyone ever stumble across "pain de vigneron?" The version I bought in Uzes (in a boulangerie whose baguettes were mediocre-at-best) was a two-foot (.6 meter) cylindrical loaf with a diameter roughly equal to a dinner plate. It was immense. The crust was thich and rustic, the mie almost creamy and bubbly, possibly sourdough, and probably a mix of white and whole wheat flour. You ordered it by the inch (or the centimeter, I suppose) or, really, by holding your thumb and forefinger the apprpriate distance from one another and thet sliced off a round that resembled nothing so much as a cross-section from a largish pine tree and sold it by the pound. Excellent stuff. Never saw it before or since.

[devlin]

I had no idea so many people hated our sourdough. Have the people who are complaining so loudly ever actually been to San Francisco or are they passing judgement on all the products which are simply sold as "San Francisco Sourdough" in supermarkets across the country?

←

When people tell me they hate sourdough breads, I ask questions, like where have they been buying their sourdoughs, because I'm generally sure right off the bat they're buying "sourdough" bread from a grocery store, the sort of mass-produced stuff passed off as sourdoughs which are in fact fake sourdough, breads that call themselves sourdough but which are nothing more than very bad white bread with "sourdough" additive or a sourdough with commercial yeast added as well. Or that they've had the same thing from a restaurant bread basket. If that's what they mean by sourdough, then yeah, I'd hate sourdough too. There aren't very many bakers who bake authentic, pure sourdoughs.

And that's why I prefer to refer to my own breads as "naturally leavened." But I also manage my sourdough culture in such a way that my breads aren't sour.

The Village Bakery

[Baggy]

I can appreciate that many village bakeries in France produce pretty poor quality bread, but I suspect that 9 times out of 10 it’s because they are buying cheap flour. Outside of the towns and cities, many of the bakers are family and buying-in bread would be totally unacceptable. Often you find two bakeries even in a small village; one that everyone uses because the bread is good, and another that might have a better location, but sells bread that no one will buy.

As to pain vigneron, the only reference I can find is in L’Art du Pain by Gérald Biremont (this is one of my favourite French bread books). According to his formula, you are right that it is a levain-based dough with around 10% added rye. The rye explains the colour. As you indicated it is a boule. In Prof. Biremont’s formula the bread has hazelnuts and raisins added – presumably this is why it has the ‘vigneron’ label.

Do you remember if the loaf you bought had any fruit or nuts? Otherwise it might have been one of the many local variations that often are based on levain and rye flour.

[Baggy]

Devlin – way to go!

Sourdoughs are like wines; you know you can finesse them any way you choose. French like their sourdough with no tang, SF like the sour to strip your teeth.

Do you have a simple formula to stop your sourdough going sour or is it the way you make up the dough?

[devlin]

Devlin – way to go!

Sourdoughs are like wines; you know you can finesse them any way you choose.  French like their sourdough with no tang, SF like the sour to strip your teeth. 

Do you have a simple formula to stop your sourdough going sour or is it the way you make up the dough?

←

Simple? Yes. Although sort of high-maintenance at the same time. I refresh my culture once a day several days of the week, and then twice two or three days, and then I "wash" it every once in a while by diluting and refreshing over a few days which washes out what I perceive as an increase in sour and it balances out into what to my sense of taste (the actual culture) and smell is a lovely fresh thing I can't really describe. Not sour.

So on the one hand, it's very simple. Refreshing with flour and water. And an occasional wash. On the other hand, it's constant maintenance. But that's the nature of the beast. If I weren't in the bread business, I'd probably let it sit in the fridge for a couple of weeks or so until I wanted to bake.

Because my business is fledgling and small, I can't bake right away when I get back from a stint out of town because I need to bring the culture back to what I consider full function. Or anyway, I won't bake right away because of that. I could, but I prefer not to because the culture's not quite up to snuff if it's been sitting in the fridge for days.

[Baggy]

Have you tried any French methods for building dough from a starter? I have been using a three step build from the chef culture, adding about 35-40% of starter as a percentage of the total weight of dough. Building up this way seems to keep the flavours clean and the starter doesn’t get a chance to make the dough slack.

With the French being a slave to unions and labour law, the three-build approach has a first fermentation long enough to be done overnight, with the final two steps and baking completed the next working day. The result is a very mild, creamy bread, but its taste does depend on the culture, fermentation temperature and flour.

One of the things that I’ve seen in France, is making bread from the first and second stages – the first stage bread is priced lower as it is rougher (more sour and less structure), with the finest bread coming after the third build.

Perhaps you might have some thoughts about some way you can get your bread production going sooner after a trip without compromising quality?

[devlin]

Have you tried any French methods for building dough from a starter?  I have been using a three step build from the chef culture, adding about 35-40% of starter as a percentage of the total weight of dough.  Building up this way seems to keep the flavours clean and the starter doesn’t get a chance to make the dough slack.

With the French being a slave to unions and labour law, the three-build approach has a first fermentation long enough to be done overnight, with the final two steps and baking completed the next working day.  The result is a very mild, creamy bread, but its taste does depend on the culture, fermentation temperature and flour.

One of the things that I’ve seen in France, is making bread from the first and second stages – the first stage bread is priced lower as it is rougher (more sour and less structure), with the finest bread coming after the third build. 

Perhaps you might have some thoughts about some way you can get your bread production going sooner after a trip without compromising quality?

←

I think what you're describing is very close to what I do, but I'm not sure what you mean when you say the final two steps and baking are completed the second day. Can you describe that a little more? I suspect I do it in the reverse (the two steps the day before bake, and the final mix the day of bake), but I'm not sure.

So, for example, my standard mix is two refreshments the day before bake and then the first mix for fermentation the same night, and then the final mix the next day (the day of bake), and then about a four hour fermentation with turning, then shaping and a final proof before bake.

Close?

My durum is a departure from that, though. Two fermentations over about a day and a half, and then a final mix the day of bake with the usual rise and fold and then final proof.

[Busboy]

I can appreciate that many village bakeries in France produce pretty poor quality bread, but I suspect that 9 times out of 10 it’s because they are buying cheap flour.  Outside of the towns and cities, many of the bakers are family and buying-in bread would be totally unacceptable.  Often you find two bakeries even in a small village; one that everyone uses because the bread is good, and another that might have a better location, but sells bread that no one will buy.

As to pain vigneron, the only reference I can find is in L’Art du Pain by Gérald Biremont (this is one of my favourite French bread books).  According to his formula, you are right that it is a levain-based dough with around 10% added rye.  The rye explains the colour.  As you indicated it is a boule.  In Prof. Biremont’s formula the bread has hazelnuts and raisins added – presumably this is why it has the ‘vigneron’ label.

Do you remember if the loaf you bought had any fruit or nuts?  Otherwise it might have been one of the many local variations that often are based on levain and rye flour.

←

It did not have any fruit or nuts, and it wasn't really a boule -- much closer to a largish cylinder. Reminded me of a loaf of brioche I once made in a coffee can, only on a much larger scale, and I remember wondering what it had been proofed and baked in.