A potato garlic baguette is similar to regular French bread but has a slightly chewier texture and the flavor is amazing. Since there is already garlic in it adding garlic butter just shoots it on up to... well you won't have to worry about vampires for weeks.
This dough is slightly sticky and looser than most of the other bread doughs that I have here on Restless Chipotle. It will stick to your hand as you pull it out of the dough like in the images below.
When you form the baguettes you'll just pull the dough together quickly and make it into a baguette shape. Don't try to roll it out or you'll have quite a mess on your hands. These loaves are not going to be perfectly rounded — they'll flatten out a little. Don't worry about it because the looseness of the dough is what is going to help the bread to have those big air holes in it. That's a very desirable trait for this type of bread.
Using Potato Water for Potato Garlic Baguette
Potato water is merely the water that you would normally pour off the potatoes you cooked for dinner. It is a secret weapon when it comes to creating huge, fluffy loaves of bread because the starchy water helps the yeast to rise and it helps improve the texture of the bread. My bread loaves always rise much higher when I use it.
I don't add salt to the water when boiling the potatoes because I don't want the bread to be too salty. You can keep the potato water in the fridge for several days — just warm it to a lukewarm temperature before using.
Ready to give it a try?
Potato Garlic Baguette Recipe
Print SaveIngredients
- 1 head of garlic
- 3 cups lukewarm potato water
- Pinch of granulated ginger
- 2 yeast, (1 1 /2 tablespoons)
- 1 ½ tablespoons kosher salt
- 1 tablespoons sugar
- 1 cup mashed potatoes
- 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
- 5 ½ to 6 ½ cups bread flour
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Instructions
- Mix the yeast, ginger, sugar, water, 2 cups of the flour in a large bowl.
- Set aside and let rise for about an hour..
- Meanwhile, roast the garlic by wrapping it in aluminum foil and baking it for 30 minutes in a 400F oven.
- Cool.
- Cut the top from the garlic and squeeze the softened garlic out into a small bowl.
- Mash it completely – you should have about 2 tablespoons.
- Stir the dough down and add the garlic, salt, mashed potato, and granulated garlic.
- Place in the bowl of a mixer with the bread hook attached.
- Mix in enough of the remaining flour to make a slightly sticky dough and knead according to manufacturer's instructions - or about 5 minutes.
- Cover bowl with a loose towel and let it rise for 2 ½ hours.
- Punch down.
- Divide into three loaves.
- Shape into baguettes.
- Sprinkle a cookie sheet with cornmeal and add the loaves to the sheet.
- Let loaves rise 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 450F degrees.
- Slash the top of the loaves.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.
- Let cool before slicing.
Carol Cevas
I used to make bread when I lived at a high elevation. I was very good at it. Since I moved to the coast, my loaves could have been used as footballs.
This recipe solved everything! It's all about the potato water and the mashed potato.
The large crumb is so perfect. It's soft and chewy. And the crust is just right.
I have been able to adapt this recipe for focaccia and even pizza crust.
BTW, I don't have baquette pans. What I did was rolled leftover heavy foil pans into rolls so that they tightly fit into a 2" deep pan, and made sections with them. In went the baguette dough and they turned out perfectly.....The foil rolls can be used over and over again.
Thanks!
Debbie
Why put the dough in a mixing bowl with a dough hook if you aren't going to knead it?
Marye
That was an oversight on my part. It's fixed now.