• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Baguettes?

C

Chris152

Sapling
Joined
May 2, 2021
Messages
452
Reaction score
64
Waitrose:

IMG_20241004_123001.jpg IMG_20241004_123104.jpg

Today's - and they're consistently like this: not properly browned (especially toward the centre), not crispy. and the interior is nothing like a French baguette, more like a regular sandwich loaf. Is it the same in all Waitrose(s?), or just ours?

I've found Tesco is better, and Lidl better again. And the prices drop accordingly. As for Waitrose almond croissants - well, they look and feel like someone stepped on them.

I sometimes buy the baguette when the Grand Pain isn't on the shelf - that, by comparison, is usually very nice.

Which supermarket does the best baguette? And does anyone know why it seems so difficult to make a decent one in the UK?
 
Waitrose has been going downhill for a while. Quality down prices up.
Baguette goes stale as you look at it.
Supermarket bread is very expensive vs make your own. I haven't bought bread for at least 5 years. Lots of bread makers on here.
For supermarket breads many seem to think Lidl is the best compromise of price ad quality.
 
I’ve never seen a proper baguette in the UK where the word seems to be used to describe the shape rather than the texture.
We buy bread made nearly every day here but only allow ourselves the luxury of a baguette at the weekend. Buying bread for us is as much to do with the walk to the boulangerie and the necessity to keep small village bakeries alive as it about the taste.
Proper daily baked bread here does go hard very quickly but it never goes mouldy. We keep the end bits for weeks inbetween making bread puddings.
 
I think you are cooking for 1 Chris? Just a thought, it is worth trying the Picard Frozen mini baguettes sold by Ocado among others.

And this, claimed to be authentically French. https://www.ocado.com/products/la-b...&utm_content=non-brand&gad_source=1&gclsrc=ds

I know of a restaurant in Kent that claims, partially truthfully, to bake their own bread, but in reality actually used the Picard product bought in bulk.
 
Chris152 said:
Waitrose:

View attachment 29102 View attachment 29103

Today's - and they're consistently like this: not properly browned (especially toward the centre), not crispy. and the interior is nothing like a French baguette, more like a regular sandwich loaf. Is it the same in all Waitrose(s?), or just ours?

I've found Tesco is better, and Lidl better again. And the prices drop accordingly. As for Waitrose almond croissants - well, they look and feel like someone stepped on them.

I sometimes buy the baguette when the Grand Pain isn't on the shelf - that, by comparison, is usually very nice.

Which supermarket does the best baguette? And does anyone know why it seems so difficult to make a decent one in the UK?
Click to expand...
Waitrose lost it a long time ago. Pop into Sainsbury's...get a baguettine. Freeze it. Then 40 secs microwave to thaw. Stick in oven and let temp rise to 160. When it goes ping.....enjoy. Works best in a Sharp combi on the worktop, it has to be said. Also their sourdough pave is pretty good.

Actually I like Waitrose almond croissant although yesterday's was a bit overdone.

What I find is that all...and I mean all. the supermarkets are bug***rring about with their products all the time chasing the halfpenny down the drain. I am long resigned to whatever is, for me, the 'Favorit du jour' being mucked about and so off I go in search of a replacement from supermarket B. Until ....

I don't eat that much bread so no point getting into the home-baking stuff.

Edit: You don't have to freeze it first but I buy several at a go and whack 'em in.
 
AJB Temple said:
I think you are cooking for 1 Chris? Just a thought, it is worth trying the Picard Frozen mini baguettes sold by Ocado among others.

And this, claimed to be authentically French. https://www.ocado.com/products/la-b...&utm_content=non-brand&gad_source=1&gclsrc=ds

I know of a restaurant in Kent that claims, partially truthfully, to bake their own bread, but in reality actually used the Picard product bought in bulk.
Click to expand...
Yebbut how about these frozen French croissants that are suppoed to be undetectable from the real stuff. Or so it says....dunno...
 
I have never really cooked a truly successful baguette. Adrian will know more than me, but I think hot oven, heat below, steam injection, a somewhat less hard bread flour and maybe a bit of glucose on the crust.

I always get ficelles, when I am entrusted to go out.

But, as a diversion, bánh mì (Vietnamese), num pang (Cambodian, but I’m getting to the limits of my language skills here) and one from Laos that I can’t remember. And the phrases are also used to denote the sandwiches that are made from them. Baguettes, but with some rice flour, and sugar. Inevitably split, and served stuffed with, quite often a cinnamon flavoured pâté, but also more straightforward pork. And of course loads of herbs and lettuce.

Someone has suggested than the bánh and pang are derived from pain. But how on earth should I know. Still, very pleasant.
 
I suspect the legally compulsory additives in UK flour have something to do with it.

I've found for normal bread a small teaspoonful of malt extract to be good. It aids fermentation when it's not too warm and makes for better toast.
 
Nope. I don't know better. 🤣 My limits are sourdough (just moved to malt ferment) and brioche. Plus various flatbreads when I pretend I can make Indian food. Baguettes only really work in France for me, and have to be eaten for lunch on the day they were baked.
 
The malt thing is a coincidence as Phil mentioned it whist I was posting. I've moved over the the Clare Smyth recipe (but not exact fiddly method) used at Core. They replace water in the ferment with a kind of bread soup using powdered malt and some treacle. Just experimenting with it currently. They are very prescriptive about mixing and proving, with a lot of bench rest and only 7 hours in the fridge.
 
Thanks all - I'll try Sainsbury's, I've not been in there for years, and I've never used Ocado but that baguette certainly looks worth a go.
I bought a nice bread machine a couple of years ago, but like many kitchen gadgets it now sits unused most of the time. I need to fire it up again - in the past, I've just made plain white or wholemeal loaves, the instruction booklet's a bit overwhelming, so many options that I end up just making a sandwich loaf.
I quite liked preparing the dough in the machine, then placing in a separate tray and cooking in the oven, it seems to get a better texture. I also enjoy sourdough, but I've not tried cooking it yet - maybe that could work instead of the baguette, if I can get it right. I'll do a search on the forum, I know it's come up in the past.
 
We buy some of our bread at Waitrose but also very often at the local bakeries and delis of which there are many in Bristol… properly cooked and proved bread with no additives - a world of difference… even when I lived in rural Cotswolds there were several local bakeries selling sourdough or similar - more expensive but a huge difference in quality!
 
We have a traditional independent in Tiverton, mostly baking sandwich, split tins, farmhouse, white, brown, some wholemeal, rolls, cakes, pastries, pasties etc. The white bread difference from supermarkets is like chalk and cheese. Mind you, can be stale within a couple of days if you don't freeze it. No preservatives.
 
As an aside, where do all you baker blokes store your baguettes? What you desperately need is a proper 'Baguette Cabinet':

IMG_3519.jpeg

IMG_3520.jpeg

...so called by a certain AndyP of this parish who named it so many years ago. It's been the 'Baguette Cabinet' ever since :ROFLMAO: - Rob
 
Last edited:
Nobody stores baguettes :ROFLMAO: They become a baseball bat within a day.

PS. Nice cabinet. But its inside out. :cool:
 
Last edited:

Done the traditional way, in a trough and cloth, started on the Wednesday, baked on the Saturday, IIRC. A great deal of faff. Good, though.

Today is my partner's birthday. She's just getting over Covid, so hasn't got much taste, but she wanted to go to a famed pattisserie in the next town for goodies. It all looked fantastic.

We shared a spinach and goat's cheese pastry followed by a mille feuille. Yum.

Except the savoury thingy was reheated in a microwave and so was rubbery and the mille feulle was just sugar and cream, no flavour at all.

We've fond this before, lots of dainties are all about appearance, the actual taste is very disappointing.

Pass me my metformine, will you, please?
 
I don't really get why professional establishments, who presumably aspire to quality, use microwave ovens.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top