What it does not do, however, is keep its shape very well after the first day or so.
Recipe two is for a baguette. Here's that lazy dough, resting:
I should have foreseen the problem right from this point. I also should have put more cornmeal on the pizza paddle...because that baguette would not slide onto the baking stone. Would not.
I had to pick up the limp, sticky foot of dough and convince it to let go of my fingers and lay in a vaguely baguette-ish way on the stone.
Of course, this meant that all the heat escaped from the oven, and once again I didn't get the hot water into the broiler pan and close the door fast enough to get any kind of steam action happening inside the oven. It was mostly coming out my ears by this point, anyway.
Stupid baguette.
Out of the oven, it looked like this:
No one would look at that sorry hunk of baked flour and say "Oh, a baguette. How lovely and delicious it looks".
But the joke's on her, because she would have missed out on this:
Jokes on you, stuck up lady who wouldn't say nice things about my sad baguette.
Two recipes in, and I've already started on the maniacal laughter.
Uh-oh.
(If you want to know what I'm talking about, go to Proof of Bread to read up.)
(Also, my modified recipe for crispy, crusty, delicious and cheap french bread is here.)