A bakery and café with branches in north and east London, The Dusty Knuckle is lauded for helping at-risk youths into employment. It’s also celebrated for its world-class bakes, including these crunchy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside baguettes. They’re a labour of love, but all good things come to those who wait…
RECIPE MAX TOBIAS, REBECCA OLIVER AND DAISY TERRY PHOTOGRAPHS MATT RUSSELL
Technical bake
THE RECIPE
Makes 4 baguettes, each serving 2 Hands-on time 1 hour, plus a week to make the starter, 8-10 hours resting, overnight chilling and 1 hour proving Oven time 18 min Useful to have Digital thermometer; dough scraper; baking stone
MAKE AHEAD You’ll need to make your starter first, which takes a week to be ready. You’ll need to soak the linseeds in water for at least 4 hours (or up to 48 hours) before you plan to make the bread. Once soaked, drain the seeds, then weigh out the amount you need.
KNOW-HOW Water temperature is the easiest tool a baker has to help them influence the speed of fermentation in the dough. In winter, use warm water and try to keep your dough in a warm place; in summer, use cold water and keep your dough out of the sun. As a rough guideline, we aim for a dough temperature of 23-25°C and our working room temperature is normally around 19°C.
• 100g wholemeal flour
• 375g strong white bread flour, plus extra to dust
• 370g warm water (see Know-how)
• 135g stiff starter (see p113)
• 15g fine sea salt
• 100g cooked porridge, overnight oats, cooked bulgur wheat or cooked rice (see introduction, left)
• 100g soaked golden or brown linseeds (see Make Ahead)
• Vegetable oil for greasing
• Rice flour to dust
1 Mix the flours and 300g of the warm water in a bowl until there are no wet or dry bits. Scrape down the bowl, cover, then set aside for 2-4 hours to allow your flour to hydrate fully.
2 Weigh out your starter and add it with the remaining 70g warm water to the flour bowl. Squish, squeeze and squelch your dough. It will go weird and slimy, but don’t worry – this is normal. When it’s all combined, scrape down the bowl, cover it and set aside for 30 minutes. Add your salt to the bowl and mix this through, squeezing the dough again until the salt is totally incorporated. Add the porridge and soaked linseeds and work these into the dough mix – you want to give this a good 8 minutes. Use a scraper or your hands to get under the dough and lift it up, then lightly oil the inside of the bowl. Cover the bowl with a lid or a clean tea towel and leave it somewhere warm for 1 hour. Take a mental picture of how much the dough fills the bowl – by the end, you w
