Day 1 – Feeding Your Starter (Levain)

Sourdough Starter (Levain)

• Using 5g of your existing starter (Levain), feed it with 35g flour and 30g water. Leave it loosely covered overnight until it has doubled in volume, is active, and bubbly.
• If you have no starter yet, here is a link on how to make your own. You just need water and flour.
• How strong your starter is depends on your flour. Use good quality flour to feed it for best results. The consistency should be like very thick, stiff pancake batter.
• How long your starter will take depends on the temperature of your house. In winter it might need longer, in summer significantly shorter.
• To determine if it’s ready check if it has doubled in volume, is actively bubbling, you see nice, strong gluten strands if gently pulling it away from the walls of the jar with a spoon and it floats on water.
• If yours seems too runny, add a bit more flour, until it gets harder to stir and leave for a few more hours.

Day 2 – Mixing The Baguette Dough/Bulk Proof

Mix The High Protein Dough

• Check if your sourdough starter is ready by adding a dollop of it to the water. If it floats and is nice and bubbly, it’s ready. Ideally it should just have formed a bit of a dome in its jar, when at peak activity.
• Blend the cottage cheese and protein powder with some of the water until smooth.
• Add the cottage cheese-protein mix to the sourdough starter together with the remaining water and stir until combined.
• In a large bowl mix the salt into your flour.
• Pour the liquids into your flour and stir until you have a shaggy dough without any dry flour bits.
• Your dough will be very wet and sticky at this point. Don’t add more flour. This is working as intended.
• Cover with a lid, plastic wrap, a shower cap or a damp tea towel and let it sit for about one hour.

Stretch And Fold

• After the first hour, start a series of 3-4 stretch and folds (or coil folds, which is what I show here).
• To do this without too much dough on your fingers, wet your hands lightly.
• Push both hands under the dough, pulling it upwards. Then fold it over itself.
• Turn the bowl 90 degrees and repeat. Do this 4 times until the bowl returns to its starting position and the dough is visibly smoother and stronger.
• Repeat every 30 minutes to 1 hour for 2-4 times or until your dough looks smooth and strong.

Bulk Ferment

• Allow your protein baguette dough to bulk ferment on the counter for 4-6 hours or until it looks visibly risen and puffy. You should see little bubbles on top and if you used a glass bowl, even more on the sides.

Overnight Fridge Ferment

Now you have two options:

• You can cover your dough and store it in the fridge overnight for a slow fermentation (8-12 hours, or even up to 3 days if you prefer a stronger sourdough flavor or life gets in the way of baking) and shape about 2-3 hours before you want to bake your baguettes.
• Or you can do what I did and go straight to the shaping, allowing them to overnight ferment while shaped.

Shaping The Baguette

• Oil your baguette pan if you have one and line it with strips of baking parchment. This will prevent the high hydration protein dough to get stuck in the holes and give you a lovely even crust.
• If you are using a Dutch Oven, get a towel, push it into a few long folds, dust them heavily with rice flour.
• Crucial Tip: Use strips of parchment paper even in a non-stick pan. The lactose in the cottage cheese and whey acts like a glue when it carmelizes; the parchment ensures you won’t have to pry your beautiful bread out with a knife.
• After the overnight fermentation (or right after the last stretch and fold, if you go for same day baking) take your dough out your bowl using a dough scraper onto your floured worktop.
• Shape it into a neat log by doing a “letter fold” to start giving it a bit of tension. For that, stretch the dough gently into a rectangle, fold one third over the center, then the other, essentially ending up with something like a very rough letter shape.
• Use your dough scraper or knife to cut it in half. This recipe makes 2 medium baguettes, meaning it will be easy to handle.
• Stretch each portion gently into a rough rectangle. Then take the top half, fold it over the center and push with your fingertips or side of your hand, to attach it to the bottom part of the dough.
• Then take the bottom corners and fold the lower third over the bit you just attached.
• Using a sort of “knitting” or pinching motion with your fingertips, seal the seam.
• Use the surface tension from your worktop (and very little flour) to gently roll your baguette into a longer shape, tapering the ends into that classic sourdough tip if you like. I prefer mine more rounded. But you do you.
• Gently place the shaped baguette, seam side down, on your baking parchment.

Cold Ferment/Last Proof

• I put my baguettes in the fridge overnight at this point and since I don’t want them to dry out and form a skin, which might bake into a very hard crust later, I use a bit of a trick to keep them moist and in perfect shape while giving them time to rise.
• I found towels decidedly too drying (even when damp) and frustratingly sticky and plastic wrap, no matter how carefully I tried to seal it always had air gaps, leading to dry bits plus was too tight to give my baguettes enough room to expand.
• Hence I started using (clean) large plastic bags, which works marvellously!
• Transfer whichever proofing surface you chose onto a tray that will fit into your fridge. My baguette pan didn’t really need a tray, as it was sturdy enough.
• Spray the baguettes with a little bit of water, to get that crisp, shiny crust. Or flour, if you prefer a thicker, crunchier crust.
• Push said tray or pan into a large clean plastic bag, blow a bit of air into it, so it puffs up over the baguettes and close it with a clip or knot, to get a relatively airtight seal.
• Move into the fridge and allow to cold ferment/proof for at least 8 hours, to get the full flavor. Up to 2 days works perfect, after that they start to deflate a little.

Day 3 – Scoring and Baking your Sourdough Bread

Scoring your Sourdough Baguette

• Since these baguettes are very soft and well hydrated, they are notoriously hard to score. But if you don’t score them deep enough, they tend to break open along the seams at the bottom/side during baking.
• So I used yet another little trick to get them firm enough for a nice, deep score, leading to the lovely clean shape you see in the pictures: I froze them, still inside the bag, for about 30 minutes, so they could form a harder shell.
• Take them out of the bag.
• Then you can use a sharp knife or lame, to make deep cuts (about ½ in/1cm or even a bit deeper) diagonal across the top at an about 45 degree angle. Don’t be shy. The deeper you cut, the bigger they puff up. Anything too deep will simply close. It will look and feel like you are slicing nearly halfway through the dough. That’s the plan.

Baking The Protein Baguettes

• While your baguette is developing its frozen shell and you are scoring, pre-heat your oven depending on your baking method.
• Pre-heat your oven to 225C/450F.
• If you are using a Dutch oven add that from the start so it gets nice and hot.
• Once it’s nice and hot, either use the parchment strips to gently transfer your baguettes into your Dutch oven (as you can see below, I’m not very talented at said transfer, so mine came out rather crooked) and cover with the lid.
• Bake for 10 minutes with the lid on, then 10-15 Minutes with the lid off at 210C/410F
• For the baguette pan method, put a heat proof container (ideally metal, as we will add cold water to it after heating) to the bottom of the oven. An oven tray works well.
• For the baguette pan method keep the temperature the same during the baking, spray your scored baguettes with a little more water (I use a tiny spray bottle that is usually for makeup, as it gives a really fine mist), push them into the oven and immediately add a cup of water to the container underneath.
• Close the door, bake for about 8 minutes. Rotate the baguette pan if you oven bakes unevenly (mine sure does), take out the pan with water and let the steam release, close the door and bake for another 8-10 minutes or until golden brown and crispy.
• Remove your amazing baguettes from the oven. Allow to cool for just a few minutes, then rip one apart, marvel at the incredibly fluffy texture and enjoy, very French, with some creamy camembert. (Or whichever topping you want. I’m sure the French will object, but your baguette, your rules! 😉 )