Side question: Why do people buy baguettes? Do they make sandwiches with them? How do you even make a sandwich from them? How are you meant to beat a baguette????
You cut a baguette down the middle to make a sandwich
Why are they different shapes?
Submitted 11 hours ago by Speedforce@multiverse.soulism.net to [deleted]
https://multiverse.soulism.net/static/media/posts/HW/8U/HW8UHi1FkZGC5M5.jpeg
Comments
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 10 hours ago
The fact that someone have to explain this, is kinda funny
CluckN@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Yeah this is NoStupidQuestions so we should only have high level discourse.
blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
Plus, being on here it’s difficult to tell if it’s a joke or general ignorance
iamthetot@piefed.ca 10 hours ago
Not only that, baguettes go great with lots of cheeses.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 hours ago
They also go great with dipping in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 10 hours ago
And soups.
bryndos@fedia.io 5 hours ago
jdr@lemmy.ml 10 hours ago
Because the dough was a different shape before baking.
You can beat a baguette with a golf club, a truncheon, or even another baguette.
diemartin@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
Honytawk@feddit.nl 5 hours ago
Allero@lemmy.today 6 hours ago
ELI5: it depends on how you shape it.
You can load the dough into a metallic shape and close it with a lid, and you’ll get picture 1.
Or you can make a ball out of it and leave it be on a flat surface, and it will naturally expand to look like picture 2.
Side question: narrow shape makes baguette have a more crispy texture, which many people like. It’s also usually produced using a special kind of sourdough, which makes it have unique and rich taste. People eat it as is (just biting it from one end to another) or make small open sandwiches by cutting it in slices and putting all sorts of toppings on top of them.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
I saw someone just cut it down the middle and make a long skinny sandwich with one. I didn’t even know that was legal.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Try a jambon-beurre, incredibly simple, incredibly delicious.
blarghly@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Why would you want to bake in a container vs a flat surface? Why are some types of bread one shape, and others another? Is it just tradition, or is there some practical aspect?
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 10 hours ago
The sandwich bread is mass produced, baked in racks of loaf pans, designed to give very consistent and convenient slices for making sandwiches.
The second pic is the way many people prefer to bake a more rustic loaf. The dough is just placed on a flat sheet, so there’s much more crust, and it can just rise however it does. It’s less convenient for sandwiches.
No baguettes aren’t used for sandwiches, they’re used to serve bread with the meal. If you’re eating dinner, you don’t really want a slice of sandwich bread, you want something more convenient to hold in your hand, dip in you pasta sauce, or whatever. Plus it has a higher ratio of crust to insides, which can be nice.
cattywampas@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
No baguettes aren’t used for sandwiches
My jambon-beurre begs to differ
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 10 hours ago
Apparently it’s just not a thing where I am. I’ve seen them used for little hors d’oeuvre things, but not for a meal-type sandwich.
I stand corrected.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 10 hours ago
No baguettes aren’t used for sandwiches
I’d say that they are great for making sandwiches tho
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
Uh what? Guess you have never been to France?
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
I have not and stand corrected
leftascenter@jlai.lu 9 hours ago
Delphia@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
The rectangular loaf was designed for packing efficiency. Once bakeries became a thing and moving bread over distances to supply people became more and more common bakers realised that bread isnt heavy, its bulky and packing efficiency was an easy way to reduce costs
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 5 hours ago
Okay, why not hexagon shaped bread?
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 hours ago
Because you can stack rectangles into bigger rectangles, can’t really do that with hexagons.
Typhoonigator@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
How high are you stacking your bread
owsei@programming.dev 8 hours ago
In Brazil we have a small baguette called “French bread”! It’s very convenient and absolutely everywhere
ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I believe those are called Petit Pain.
owsei@programming.dev 8 hours ago
At first I was impressed it exists if France, but it’s kinda obvious. Now I’ve learnt that, for 20 years of my life, I believed a bullshit story about how hundreds of years ago people in Brazil couldn’t make baguette so they sold “French Bread”
Btw, cute name for a pastry
MunkyNutts@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
One’s cooked in a pan, the other not.
You can use baguettes in multiple ways like other breads, imagination is the limit.
-Cut it on the bias (at an angle), toast and use to dip in soup or mop up sauce. I do this with onion soup to top it, buttered and sprinkled with a good melting cheese, place on top of soup in bowl and broil in oven until melted and browning. Image
-Slice in half long ways, butter with a good garlic butter recipe, bake in oven until browned serve with spaghetti. Image
-Once it’s old, stale and hard, cube it up (can do it fresh too) use as croutons for salads or grind it up for bread crumbs to cook with.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Geometrinen_Gepardi@sopuli.xyz 10 hours ago
Dang, that crumb is amazing. Did you bake that?
MunkyNutts@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Ha! No, I’m a decent cook but a mediocre baker, that pic is from wikipedia.
Jojowski@sopuli.xyz 10 hours ago
One word: Bánh mì
Regarding your main question: you don’t fit a square in a round hole.
orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
That’s two words.
FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 9 hours ago
Well lookee here fellas, it looks like we got a fancy pants that can count to 2!
myrrh@ttrpg.network 2 hours ago
…i don’t know, man: vietnamese writes all syllables as separate words but they still cognate as a single lexical unit…
Kolanaki@pawb.social 10 hours ago
Bánh mì
I mean… If that’s what you want 🤷♂️
user has been banned from !foodporn@lemmy.world
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 5 hours ago
I got in trouble once for pronouncing it correctly and people thought I was just being lewd 😭
stringere@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
I love ordering a bánh mì with pho and dipping it.
orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
If you have a Viet restaurant that serves things other than phó and noodles, check out a dish called “Bánh mì bo kho” - it’s a spicy beef curry dish, chunks of meat, onions, potatoes and broth that comes with the bánh mì baguette to dip.
fonix232@fedia.io 7 hours ago
Well, there's a number of reasons for the shape of the various bread types. The dough type - from the kind of flour used, through the resting time, fermentation time, raising agent (let it be any of a variety of yeast products, wild yeast aka sourdough starter, baking powder or baking soda, there's tons of options), how hydrated it is, and so on. The oven type and baking approach. The purpose of the bread.
Your first picture is of a standard toast or sandwich bread. It's supposed to be a fairly loose, soft bread with a soft crust and an engineered shape for easier baking - with conduction baking on all sides except the top (here conduction baking refers to the fact the sides and bottom of the bread is held in place by a heated metal tray, transferring heat directly without letting air or steam escape, resulting in the soft crust). A more industrial yeast type is used (usually dry or instant yeast), which result in relatively small gas bubbles, giving it a dense but fluffy interior. The flour is usually a light wheat flour, and both resting and fermentation times are low - that's why it's a more industrial bread, you mix the ingredients, let the mixture sit for 30-60 minutes then bake it, easily automated.
The second picture is of a sourdough loaf. This usually uses wholemeal wheat flour, often mixed with rye or other grains for better texture, and is a fairly tedious bread to make with multiple stretch and fold sequences and long resting periods, allowing lots of gluten to form, which means every stretch and fold sequence doesn't mix the dough but rather layers and shapes it. The yeast comes from a sourdough starter, and is allowed to ferment longer, which is why you get an intense flavour. It bakes quick in a Dutch oven first covered then uncovered, allowing it to fluff up but then shape a hard crust. You get much larger bubbles and an internal structure of long strands of gluten forming swirls and such.
Then the baguette, it uses a different approach to sourdough but with a similar effect. Unlike sandwich bread, the dough for baguettes - as well as what I'd call "European medium bread" (medium here meaning the hardness and bakedness of the crust) - a crispy crust that isn't as well baked as a sourdough, but also isn't soft, with a well developed gluten structure, using more predictable yeasts (again usually instant quick yeast or dry yeast, or in some areas, live yeast cubes). Mind you the baguette you're showing is more of a hypermarket style baguette that is intentionally baked to a lesser darkness, and traditional baguettes are more on the golden brown part of the scale.
Overall, the kind of flour determines the flavour, but also the raising and resting times. Some flours (especially wholemeal or grain mix flours) need more time as the more complex proteins and sugars take more time to be broken down by the yeast thus they rise slower. Hydration determines how tough the dough is to shape (e.g. pasta is only hydrated by the eggs, making it a hard, dense dough, pizza needs to be flexible so it's high hydration, and it gets extra raise in the oven as the water quickly evaporates). Yeast determines the flavour, the raising time, and in the final product, the texture and airiness. The baking method can fuck a lot with the texture. A regular convection oven can dry the crust out making it tough and thick, forming quickly and stopping the bread from rising, but adding some ice in a pan at the bottom can generate enough steam to let the bread rise properly by delaying the crust hardening. Same idea for sourdough using a Dutch oven, you create a high moisture environment, a steam box, to keep the crust soft while the bread rises, then remove it at the end so the crust can cripsen and brown. The sandwich bread is medium hydration thus it keeps the sides moist while they bake, giving it that brown but soft crust. If you were to plop the same dough just into the oven, without the baking shape, due to there being little to no gluten development, it would just fall apart and harden into the world's shittiest giant cookie.
But also you can bake bread in a Dutch oven over an open fire, giving a more rustic style bread with thick, chewy, but also cripsy crust. Toss the same dough with lower hydration into a circle and onto an upside down pan in the same fire and you got some awesome flatbread with a nice center air pocket you can open up and stuff with meat.
Then, you can decide to just fuck it and add as much high fructose corn syrup as possible without fucking up the bread, and you get American style bread.
Allero@lemmy.today 7 hours ago
Beautiful answer!
A small point from someone working alongside bread industry - small bubbles in toast/sandwich bread are not due to the type of yeast used, but due to intentionally low time for second stage mixing and, as you mentioned, low time for resting and leavening. You can absolutely create huge bubbles using the very same yeast, though, if that’s your goal.
krashmo@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Ah, a fellow bread bro
fonix232@fedia.io 7 hours ago
I'm not even a bread bro, I just happen to have ADHD and got a few hyperfocus sessions into sourdough 😭
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
IMHO, I don’t know why people buy those sliced white bread loafs. That bread is weak sauce.
Diddlydee@feddit.uk 10 hours ago
That bread looks meh, but there are plenty of great white slice bread options, particularly if you’re a toast fan.
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Totally agree. Sliced bread is great. But that white bread sandwich which stuff. Bleh.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Brioche is definitely for toast/french toast/samdwhiches.
I’ve only seen big loves like that for restaurants though.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 5 hours ago
Whole grain is infinitely better.
The average american is conditioned from birth to prefer mediocre, bland, mass-produced food options with highly refined ingredients and/or highly processed foods with way too much sugar and artificial flavoring.
White bread is the lamest thing. Even “artisanal” bread in america is really just white bread in disguise, unless you know what to look for. I’ve even seen breads labeled as “with whole grains” that are actually just white bread with a few whole grains added in, just enough that they can put it on the label. I fucking hate the food industry here.
Oh, and fun fact: in Europe they call sliced bread “toast” because the only use they have for it is to toast it. Literally any other purpose and they choose a better bread.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Well of course, it’s bread, not sauce.
palordrolap@fedia.io 6 hours ago
Which country? The ingredients of a sliced white loaf vary significantly across the planet. Here in Britain it's (re)fortified with a lot of the things the bleaching process might otherwise take out, but those are pretty much the only additives. No sugar or preservatives. Keep a loaf in a warm cupboard for a week and it will visibly moulder.
But, one thing that generally doesn't vary is the price.
It's often the cheapest loaf by weight sold by any supermarket or bakery, so it's a staple for a lot of people, weak sauce or not.
FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 9 hours ago
Garbage tier bread.
Diddlydee@feddit.uk 10 hours ago
I amazed that you can not figure out how to use a baguette to make a sandwich. It’s not a fractal or a tesseract, it’s a long bit of bread.
CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Be nice. This is No Stupid Questions.
Diddlydee@feddit.uk 7 hours ago
What wasn’t nice? It’s clearly remarkable that making a sandwich from a baguette isn’t a task that requires any research, and also remarkable that you could have lived for any length of time as an adult and not seen a baguette with filling somewhere.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 10 hours ago
Unbaked Bread is a yeast fungus building a house out of glutens, all of which very slowly expands to fit it’s container. You can shape it a lot of ways.
NABDad@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
would you like a recipe?
If you have a good recipe, I’d suggest that your question should be restated in a form that includes that recipe.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
I’d be curious about your recipe.
I already have a few go-tos though. (Have you ever tried using sourdough discard in waffles? I got the idea from KAF, And they’re amazing
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 9 hours ago
That waffle thing sounds chewy and bitter, idk if I’d try that.
Easy dinner bread, focaccia
Dough:
- 3 cups flour and a little extra
- 1 cups water and a little extra (I recommend distilled or filtered water over tap)
- 2 tbsp olive oil (I don’t trust Italian brands) or unsalted butter
- 1 tsp salt
- Choice of Yeast: either 1.5 to 2 tsp of Active/Instant Dry Yeast from a brown glass jar or you can just use a fistful of sourdough starter.
- Optional Spice Mixture: 2 tsp total from a mixture of 2 parts garlic powder (not salt), 2 onion flake/powder, 1 rosemary, 1 thyme, 1 oregano, 1 parsely, 1 sage
Wear gloves, mix all ingredients by hand. Repeatedly flatten, press fingers into, roll up, and repeat until dough is mostly homogynous, smooth, and with slightly glossy texture and very little stickiness. If the dough is stratified and not smooth, then its not enough water. If it’s too sticky, not enough flour. I appreciate having a second person available to add flour so I don’t have to remove my gloves or spread dough on utensils and cups.
Place a wetted smooth cloth such as a cheesecloth or other kitchencloth over the dough. You have to rise and knead the dough twice before shaping on a pan with parchment paper and thin coat of oil. Depending on your choice of yeast it will take different amounts of time to rise. Instant dough can be kneaded every 30 minutes and then shaped on pan should double in size after about another hour. Active is every hour then two hours. Sourdough starter varies from strain to strain but it can usually be left overnight before shaping and then rise for half an hour.
I personally like to fill this bread with mozzarella and tamed jalapenoes, like the more traditional focaccia, by spreading it out during shaping, covering one side, folding and pulling the edges over to keep it shut. It also goes well with curry or with beans and corn.
Preheat oven to about 400F.
For a thin crust, beat an egg with a small amount of water, maybe a tablespoon, and apply the egg wash to the risen dough and every 10 minutes while cooking. After about 30 to 40 minutes when the top crust of the bread becomes a dark color, not just golden brown but dark, prepare another different wet cloth. Remove the bread from the oven and place the wet cloth over the top for 10 to 15 minutes.
You can skip the egg wash and second cloth, and the bread will actually last longer without spoiling when it has less moisture. Breads and pastries can be safely frozen and thawed, as well, but I recommend against refrigerating because it will cause the moisture in the bread to condensate and spoil.
Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
Why do people buy baguettes?
They taste amazing
Do they make sandwiches with them? How do you even make a sandwich from them?
Cut the baguette along the length. Cut in half. You now have 2 sandwiches
DeltaWingDragon@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
You’re not supposed to beat a baguette, you’re supposed to beat people with a baguette!
Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 4 hours ago
I beat my baguette frequently. Usually with some lotion and choice photos of my best friends mom.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I took a trip to Tahiti a couple years back, which is a French territory. Baguettes everywhere. Fellows sold sandwiches with baguettes as the bun. French toast was day old baguettes and phenomenal. Sometimes you just ate baguettes and saw people riding their mopeds with a bag of baguettes. It’s versatile and great.
RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
All depends on the shape of the pan it’s baked in.
Baguettes make good home-made garlic bread if sliced the right way.
MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
Love a well-packed baguette.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 10 hours ago
Garlic Bread.
roserose56@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
It starts with people making different sizes of bread many years ago, and continues with traditions and people having different preferences.
Having one type of bread would be boring, same way having different kind of pizza’s.Takapapatapaka@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 10 hours ago
Cut it on the side, you can effectively have a nice sandwich. Cut it in tiny slices and you can make nice tiny toast. You’re more hungry ? Cut a big portion, slice one side, and you got a tiny sandwich. Slice both sides, and now you have two big toasts, that are a bit elongated so you can dip them into your coffee/chocolate if you’d like ! It fits so many cases !
FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 9 hours ago
Depends on what it was baked in/how it was shaped.
The white bread is baked in a rectangular pan, the middle is baked in a dutch oven (but not always), and the last is just shaped that way as you portion out the dough as far as I know
NachBarcelona@piefed.social 58 minutes ago
industry vs. artisan goods?