So yes, its decidedly turned cool around these parts. And with Lori's eggplant bolognese planned for the next evening's family dinner, I thought it was time to resurrect some cool weather bread making trials. Last season I had the best luck with a Bittman french baguette recipe, though I was only happy with it once out of three attempts. And I was always frustrated that I never got More Please's bread-making master friend Adam's recipe to work. Truthfully I had forgotten about that frustration and just stumbled upon an old "note" on my phone with the ingredients, but anyway I decided to set to it. 

I first blended the dry ingredients (3 cups bread flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon yeast) in a food processor, then added the 1.5 cups of water. I was adding it slowly to gauge the texture, and right when i was about to add the full amount, it seemed too wet. I stopped immediately, reserving maybe 1 Tablespoon of the 1.5 cups of water. I thought about adding a bit more flour, but then figured I should give it a shot as-is. I've never made it this wet before, and the worse that could happen is it would suck, right? So i covered the bowl with a towel and let it rise for about 20 hrs. After 20 hrs when i checked under the towel it looked great: Tons of holes, about 2.5 times the volume, and clingy/leggy to the touch:

So i split it into two balls, folded each onto themselves a few times, then hand-rolled them into my homemade couche's to rise for another few hours:

I then got the oven cranking to an even 450 and had a big tin of water in there to keep things moist. The dough was definitely wet and didn't hold its shape very well in transport. The couche had done it's job, but getting it to the pan was a challenge. In the end they got very long... and as such i decided to turn them into giant oval baguettes. I then tossed them in the steamy oven, and after 22 minutes I had a hard crust with a distinct hollow sound when flicked with a finger:

The result? Amazing crust. Crunchy. Great crumb. Moist interior. The texture was all totally perfect. But it was super bland. Devoid of any real flavor. At all. Such a disappointment! The recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon of salt which seemed like nothing, so i doubled it. But in checking Bittman's recipe (after the fact of course) he calls for 2 teaspoons which would have done the trick. The recipe also called for 1/8 teaspoon of yeast which seemed like nothing as well, so i doubled that too. In the end, this was nobodies recipe! But I'm ready to give it a shot again... i'll do everything exactly the same but simply up the salt to 2 teaspoons.

Mr Baguette, I'll master you yet.