Easy rustic Batons

This is a simple, no-knead recipe for tasty french-style rustic batons. Prep: 15 mins, wait time 8-12 hours, cook time 25 mins

Ingredients

to make 2

• ~490g strong bread flour (white works best)
• 375ml hand-warm water
• 1/4 tsp dry bread yeast
• 2 tsp salt (nice sea or rock salt - ~1tsp if it’s the granulated stuff)

Optional:

• replace up to ~20% of the water with milk or yoghurt. (makes it softer I think, but too much makes it soggy)
• add 1 tbsp olive oil to the water
• add 1-2 tsp of honey to the water
• replace yeast with maybe 50g of sourdough starter (I found this make it a bit more flat - over-proofed - than yeast, but better flavour )

Method

• Mix dry ingredients in a bowl
• Add the wet ingredients
• Mix well, until all the flour is part of the dough
• Cover with cling film, and/or a damp tea-towel, and leave in a warm spot for 8-12 hours

It should be very bubbly and have at least doubled in size, if not tripled.

Baking

Prep a baking rack or tray with a non-stick baking sheet, pre-heat oven to 220C

• Turn out well-risen dough onto a well floured surface.
• form into a rough loaf shape
• cut in half along the lengh and separate into to equal sized (sprinkle with flour on top to stop knife sticking)
• one by one, flip over (to get more flour on) and immediately transfer to the baking rack, shaping to a rough baton shape
• optonally: score along the length or at 45 degree angles (i found that scoring works best after a few minutes in the oven)
• Bake for 25 mins
• allow to cool so the moisture creates a crunchy crust