The Baguette or Traditional French Bread

Bread is an essential part of French life just as rice is to be Asian's . France is so proud of their breads that by law every village in France must sell bread, and in most villages the boulangerie (the baker) will bake breads twice daily. As a result, the baguette is seen as a symbol of France rather than a symbol of Paris . Fortunately, we don't have to go to France to enjoy the baguette; I believe that most bakeries in the United States do a good job of providing this special bread for us. Vietnamese people preferred the baguette over any other kind of bread available because of the way the baguette is made, which creates an unusual texture that the other bread do not. It is hard to make the baguette at home because most of us don't have the commercial oven that produce the extremely high heat and the resulting steam that creates the crisp, golden outside and the soft, chewy inside of the baguette. After several months, trying unsuccessfully, I was finally able to make the baguette at home with the help of the bread machine. The result was quite satisfying.

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water (+3 tbs water)
1 tbs sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 tbs soft butter or vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1/4 cup rice flour*
1/4 cup Korean wheat flour
1 egg white + 1 tsp water to make egg wash
Spray bottle of water

Directions:
Place the ingredients into bread pan in the order listed above, except the egg white.
Chose the program for dough and press start.
When done, this is the first knead and rise in the bread machine.
Remove the dough from bread pan. Punch down the dough. Place dough into oily bowl. Cover with kitchen cloth and let it rise for a second time.
Remove dough. Place onto lightly-floured surface and let dough rest for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, roll dough into 15 x 12-inch rectangular shape. Divide dough into  four pieces lengthwise. Roll up each piece tightly lengthwise, seal, and taper both ends. The dough should look like a long big sausage.

Place baguettes seam-side down on greased baking sheet or baguette pan and sprinkle with a mixture of flour and corn meal. Cover and let rise in a warm place for the third rise for 40 minutes or until nearly double in size. With a sharp knife, make a 3-inch deep slash diagonally on top of each loaf. Brush the egg wash on top the loaf and spray sparingly with water.
15 minutes before the third rising process is finished, preheat oven to 450° and place a bowl of water at the bottom of the oven.
When the baguette is ready, open the oven door quickly, spray water inside the oven to create the steam. Put the baguette inside the oven and bake for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, quickly spray more water inside the oven and let the baguette bake for another 20 minutes.

* Rice flour will the baguette a chewy texture. You can omit this flour and replace it with Korean wheat flour or just plain bread flour. It is my personality to make something different :)