un baguette por favor

Baguettes remind me of studing in Madrid in the summer after my sophmore year of college. My senora would serve a fresh baguette to go alongside our typically monstrous lunch every day. I swear I gained nearly 10 pounds from bread alone. Embarrassing? Maybe. But you'd understand if you'd tasted these baguettes.

They had a really good chewy crumb and crunchy exterior. Far superior to the baseball bat-like objects that Tom Thumb dares to call "French baguettes". It's despicable.

So the search for a recipe that yielded results similar to my time in Spain began. To my surprise, the answer came after very little trial and error - Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. They've got the easiest bread that taste a million times better than loaves from a bread machine. The book includes so many more recipes and is definitely worth buying. This is probably the only bread I'll ever make.

Now remember the Black Bean Soup recipe that I posted recently? I also made this baguette with it and didn't share the recipe, sorry! But after a reader's request, here it is! Oh, and did I mention these baguettes make fabulous sandwiches too?

It's so simple that you might give up on storebought breads like me. So, get baking Mrs. Baird!

Baguette, makes 4-5 baguettes, adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

• 6 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1 1/2 Tbsp active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt (coarse ground)
• 3 cups 110 degree water

Other items

• 5 qt storage container with lid
• pizza stone- key, it wicks moisture away giving you a crisp crust)
• cornmeal
• pizza peel
• oven thermometer, optional

In your 5 quart container, mix the flour, yeast, salt and water with a wooden spoon until just incorporated. There's no need to knead it. Set it in a warm place with the lid slightly on to allow air to escape and allow to rise for 2 hours. At this point you can store the dough in your refrigerator for about a week or make a loaf. Preheat oven to 450 degrees with the pizza stone in it on the middle shelf(if you put the stone in after the oven is hot it could crack) and a hotel pan in the bottom shelf. You want your oven to be preheated well before you add the bread.

Heavily dust your pizza peel with cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking. Dust the dough ball with flour and cut off a orange-grapefruit size ball.  Stretch it into a baguette-shaped loaf with your hands, feel free to add more flour to keep it from sticking to your fingers. Place it on top of the cornmeal and dust it with flour. Let it rise for 40 minutes. Slash the top with a serrated knife, about a 1/4" inch deep.

Once oven is preheated and it's risen for 40 minutes, put it in the oven. In one quick, swift motion slide the baguette off the pizza peel. (Forward and jerk back quickly - be careful, you don't want to lose your baguette!). Pour 1 cup of water into the bottom of the hotel pan and close the oven door - do NOT open it until it's finished cooking. Cook for 30-35 minutes until the outside is well-browned. It'll sound hollow when you tap on it. Let cool for 30 minutes before cutting and eating. I know it's tempting to just bite into it, but it'll be better if you let it cool on it's own a bit.