bakers rack : In pursuit of the perfect baguette
Some people dream about seeing Machu Picchu before they die or writing the Great American Novel. David Radabaugh, a mild-mannered engineer retired from Schlumberger, has set his sights on France's iconic loaf - the baguette.
For about a decade, Radabaugh has attempted to bake the perfect one, so he laughs knowingly as he says, "A good bread dough is only four ingredients. There is nothing to it.''
Then he ticks them off: flour, water, yeast, salt.
A scientist by training, Radabaugh has studied those details with a single-mindedness and seriousness of purpose that, in Texas, is usually reserved for barbecue. Over the years, he has baked hundreds of loaves, photographing each from two angles and analyzing them in his Record of Panification, or breadmaking journal. It takes into consideration crust, crumb, odor, color, razor cuts and more. Much more.
Bakers far and wide consider the baguette the Mount Everest of breads, the hardest to master. As Maggie Glezer writes in Artisan Baking, "If you want to know a bakery, buy a baguette, for every twitch of the baker's hand . . . is manifested in the finished bread." Radabaugh calls the loaf the "bench mark."
This afternoon, he's making a three-baguette batch in his modest town-house kitchen in southwest Houston. A batch takes him roughly six hours from flour to finish.
Much of the time is spent waiting, for among the many requisites of a first-rate loaf is a long, slow rise (the proper term is "fermentation").
During that period, Radabaugh explains in his teacherly manner, fatty acids develop. "Without those your bread may look beautiful, but it will have no taste."
Radabaugh methodically details a few of the other key factors: Don't use too much yeast. Don't overknead the dough. And never, ever punch it down.
He gently folds his dough after the first rise. "You get these huge bubbles. That's normal. You don't want to degas this thing," he said.
"The idea is to preserve as much (of the gas) as you can. That's part of the art. No punch. No punch."
Much later, when the bread is cooling, Radabaugh quibbles with my description: "perfect."
"Perfection is in the eye of the beholder, but I know what I am after: a crisp, crackling crust. Very irregular — large, small, medium — air pockets throughout (the inside). Extremely fragrant. All three are hard to get in one baguette."
Flour trumps all. "Flour is to bread what grapes are to wine and milk is to cheese," Glezer writes.
Radabaugh, who uses flour from King Arthur's Artisan Select line, can talk with zeal about protein and ash content, oxidation and the merits of bleached versus unbleached. Actually, there are no merits to bleached: It's illegal in France.
"You will never develop flavor from a bleached flour," Radabaugh says. "If the flour looks white, you are done for."
He has hauled 30 pounds of flour back from France, but he hasn't ground his own. "I'm not that fanatical."
By PEGGY GRODINSKY
For about a decade, Radabaugh has attempted to bake the perfect one, so he laughs knowingly as he says, "A good bread dough is only four ingredients. There is nothing to it.''
Then he ticks them off: flour, water, yeast, salt.
A scientist by training, Radabaugh has studied those details with a single-mindedness and seriousness of purpose that, in Texas, is usually reserved for barbecue. Over the years, he has baked hundreds of loaves, photographing each from two angles and analyzing them in his Record of Panification, or breadmaking journal. It takes into consideration crust, crumb, odor, color, razor cuts and more. Much more.
Bakers far and wide consider the baguette the Mount Everest of breads, the hardest to master. As Maggie Glezer writes in Artisan Baking, "If you want to know a bakery, buy a baguette, for every twitch of the baker's hand . . . is manifested in the finished bread." Radabaugh calls the loaf the "bench mark."
This afternoon, he's making a three-baguette batch in his modest town-house kitchen in southwest Houston. A batch takes him roughly six hours from flour to finish.
Much of the time is spent waiting, for among the many requisites of a first-rate loaf is a long, slow rise (the proper term is "fermentation").
During that period, Radabaugh explains in his teacherly manner, fatty acids develop. "Without those your bread may look beautiful, but it will have no taste."
Radabaugh methodically details a few of the other key factors: Don't use too much yeast. Don't overknead the dough. And never, ever punch it down.
He gently folds his dough after the first rise. "You get these huge bubbles. That's normal. You don't want to degas this thing," he said.
"The idea is to preserve as much (of the gas) as you can. That's part of the art. No punch. No punch."
Much later, when the bread is cooling, Radabaugh quibbles with my description: "perfect."
"Perfection is in the eye of the beholder, but I know what I am after: a crisp, crackling crust. Very irregular — large, small, medium — air pockets throughout (the inside). Extremely fragrant. All three are hard to get in one baguette."
Flour trumps all. "Flour is to bread what grapes are to wine and milk is to cheese," Glezer writes.
Radabaugh, who uses flour from King Arthur's Artisan Select line, can talk with zeal about protein and ash content, oxidation and the merits of bleached versus unbleached. Actually, there are no merits to bleached: It's illegal in France.
"You will never develop flavor from a bleached flour," Radabaugh says. "If the flour looks white, you are done for."
He has hauled 30 pounds of flour back from France, but he hasn't ground his own. "I'm not that fanatical."
By PEGGY GRODINSKY
