A home oven is a bad place to bake a baguette. It is too small, it leaks steam, and the hot spots are where they want to be, not where you need them. I did it anyway, for six weekends in a row. This is the report.
Steam methods, ranked
| Method | Ears | Crust colour | Hassle | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ice cubes in a tray | Poor | Pale | Low | Not enough steam, too late |
| Boiling water in a cast-iron pan | Good | Good | Medium | Reliable; mind your wrists |
| Lava rocks + boiling water | Very good | Very good | Medium | The winner |
| Covered with a roasting tin | Excellent | Good | High | Great, but only two fit |
What actually mattered
- Scoring angle: almost flat, 30° to the surface, with the blade overlapping a third of the previous cut.
- A cold, slightly under-proofed dough: shape straight from the fridge and give it 45 minutes, not 90.
- Short and fat beats long and thin: 35 cm baguettes fit my oven diagonally. Forty-five centimetres did not.
You will make two hundred bad baguettes before you make a good one. Start now.
A French baker, somewhat unkindly
Would I do it again? Probably not every week. But the six weekends taught me more about scoring and steam than a year of boules did.
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