Best Baguette Ever - Blame the Oven

I'm vacationing at my mom's house for two weeks (which is an awesome break before I start my new job!)  I figured that, since I wasn't out of the country or staying at a stranger's house, there was no reason to really change my day to day habits.  Although her house isn't fitted up with a fancy new-ish mixer, I managed to make the best baguette of my baking career this afternoon.  I used the same recipe from Confessions of a French Baker: Breadmaking Secrets, Tips, and Recipes that I've been using and tinkering with for months.  However, I made a few changes simultaneously that may have affected the outcome.

First, I was concerned about the changed baking circumstances, so I increased the bread flour from half to slightly more than half.  This probably had a negligible effect on the bread, since the difference was only a quarter of a cup. 

Second, I'm not sure exactly how much yeast I used.  The recipe calls for four and a half teaspoons of yeast, but my mom's teaspoon measure is really hard to even (yes, I'll get her a new one) and, unlike at my house, I was using yeast from packets instead of from a big jar.  I seem to remember that a packet holds about two and a quarter teaspoons of yeast, but I really couldn't be sure.  After trying to measure them with the teaspoons and getting frustrated, I just poured two packets into the the bowl and went with it.  Is yeast in packets fresher than yeast in a jar?  I hope not, because it's a lot more expensive!  Did the bread benefit from an extra half teaspoon of yeast?  Possibly.  It's hard to be sure.

Third, I mixed and kneaded the bread by hand.  In the past, before the coming of the great mixer of the gods, I always mixed and kneaded by hand.  And this recipe in particular gave me so much trouble that I frequently added extra water.  Maybe it was the knowledge that a mixer could get one and a quarter cups of water to hold together three and a half cups of flour that helped me to mix it by hand this time.  I'm not sure.  I do know that I made it work without adding any extra water.  I mixed with a fork until it clearly was no longer working, then kneaded in the rest of the flour by hand.  The dough was actually softer and silkier than it is coming out of the mixer!  (It helped  that my mom has more counter space and I wasn't kneading on a rolling island, too.)

Fourth, I cooked the bread on a preheated stainless steel cookie sheet instead of a bread stone.  I'm actually not sure whether this affected the bread at all.  It probably shouldn't have, but who knows?!

Finally, and I think that this may be the most important variable, my mom's gas oven heats over 500 degrees.  The dial on my electric oven only goes up to 450, and even then I'm not really sure how hot it gets in there.  My mom tells me that her oven isn't true, but it seems much hotter than mine, anyway.  I cooked the bread at 500 degrees for about 18 minutes, then at 400 for about another 4 minutes, just to make sure that it was cooked inside.  I also placed a cake pan full of boiling water on the bottom rack and misted the oven multiple times during the first five minutes, as I usually do.  The bread is crispy on the outside and light and fluffy inside, just like at a bakery.  This is an amazing breakthrough!!!

When I get home, I will definitely experiment with hand kneading (on the counter!) and with baking on a stainless steel baking sheet, although I figure I can't do much about my oven, other than move to a nicer apartment!