'I am passionate about breads making at home for years. Once I moved to the UK, there was an urgency to take this practice very seriously.  After carrying out thorough research, I am pleased to share my recipe with people who want stepping into the same path as mine. Here, I sum up my protocol with shorts sentences, despite knowing the fact that making sourdough baguettes is a complex issue involving tricks and refined knowledge. This is a self discovery journey where everyone has the right to amend this basic recipe shared.

I would like to thank and support Shipton Mill for producing unmatched flours in the UK.' Pierre Tran

Here is my protocol.

Ingredients:

• 181 g of ready to use Levain

• 139 g of number 119
• 34g of Maris Widgeon
• 348 g of number 4
• 395 g of filtered room temperature water
• 11 g of unrefined sea salt 

Refresh the Levain the night before.

Morning, autolyse. Mix up the three varieties of flours with the water in a bowl. 

Mix up roughly avoiding lumps. A saggy texture is fine.

Leave it for 45 minutes. 

Add the Levain on the top, and incorporate well for two minutes.

Leave the bowl covered for 30 minutes. 

Add the sea salt and two table spoons of filtered water. We call this operation in French 'bassiner'.

Do not mix up too much for avoiding unnecessary oxidation.

Rest for 45 minutes. 

Fold the dough at its four corners on a wet kitchen table with wet hands. 

Rest for another 45 minutes in the bowl.

Lamination on a wet surface. 

Rest in a rectangular Pyrex for 45 minutes. 

Fold three times in total, each one is separated with a rest of 45 minutes.

Place the non-covered Pyrex in the fridge overnight.

Day after, in the morning, divide the dough into 4 equal parts.

Rest for 10 minutes.

Shape into 4 baguettes.

Rest for two hours in the oven.

Preheat the oven at 250° 

Do not forget removing the baguettes from the oven.

Put a bowl of boiling water into the oven.

Score them.

Bake the first 19 minutes at 250 °C.

Reduce the heat at 230 °C

Bake another 10 minutes.

Finally reduce at 200°C, and bake them for a last 10 minutes.

Let them cool down on a grill.