How to cook a baguette with herbs and garlic (step-by-step recipe with photos)
Gently warm 175 ml of milk (to body temperature). In a large deep bowl, combine warm milk, yeast (14 g dry or 42 g fresh), 1 tbsp. sugar, stir and leave for 10 minutes.
Add 2/3 tbsp to the diluted yeast. salt, 140 ml of warm (not hot!) water and 510 g of pre-sifted flour.
First, mix the resulting mixture with a spatula or fork and, as soon as it becomes hard enough to mix, remove the fork-spatula to the side and knead an elastic, obedient, non-sticky dough with your hands (kneading time is at least 7-10 minutes).
Cover the container with the dough with a clean towel and leave to rise for 50-60 minutes at room temperature. During this time, the dough will increase in volume several times.
How to prepare baguette filling:
While the dough is rising, cut 100 g of butter into small pieces, place in a small deep bowl and melt on the stove or in the microwave.
Wash and dry basil greens (20 g), peel 6 cloves of garlic. Pour melted butter into a blender bowl, add herbs, garlic cloves and 1/3 tsp. salt.
Puree the filling for about 15-25 seconds, turning on the blender at full power.
Grate 100 g of hard cheese (Parmesan) on a fine grater.
Forming baguettes
Knead the risen dough, place it on a floured countertop and cut it into 2 pieces with a sharp knife.
Cover one half of the dough with a towel and set it aside, and roll the other half into a rectangle measuring approximately 25x40 cm.
Brush the rolled out dough evenly with half of the green butter, basil and garlic sauce using a silicone pastry brush.
Next, sprinkle the future baguette evenly with half of the grated cheese.
Roll the dough with the filling into a roll. Transfer the resulting roll onto floured parchment and use a sharp knife to cut the roll in half lengthwise, leaving about 4 cm short of the end.
If you love baking with yeast dough, I recommend the following recipes:
To form a baguette, the cut halves of the roll must be placed overlapping each other, turning them slightly so that the cut with the filling is at the top. Thus, wrap the halves of the roll around each other in a spiral to form a baguette. Pinch the ends of the dough and tuck them under the baguette.
Place a heat-resistant container with water on the lower level of the oven (I use a small saucepan or baking dish for this purpose) and turn on the oven to heat up to 225 C. The water in the container, under the influence of the high temperature of the oven, will begin to evaporate - and a baguette baked in a humid environment will turn out with a real crispy crust. If you have an oven with steam (factory function), then use it. Carefully transfer the resulting baguette with parchment to a cold baking sheet (I place the baguette on the baking sheet diagonally - it won’t fit any other way), if desired, brush with beaten egg or milk using a pastry brush and leave to rise for about 20 minutes while the oven preheats. During this time, you can form a second baguette using the method described above. Bake the baguette for about 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
Cool the finished baguettes a little on a wire rack, if possible.
