Lien Phan from San Diego, California, wrote a couple weeks ago about a Vietnamese baguette recipe that I posted last year. She stumbled upon it and kinda went crazy. First we chatted about oven temperature because her bread was baking lots faster than mine. My response was that if the bread is cooked (it should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom), then who cares? If it's not cooked through, check the oven temperature with a thermometer and lower it.
After she mastered the recipe, which is really simple because you do it in a food processor, she went on to make all different kinds of shapes. She sent me images of her handiwork and I'm not only flattered, but also proud of her accomplishments.
To the right is Lien's epi baguette (epi means wheat in French, which is what the shape resembles -- a beautiful swaying stalk of wheat). Lien put together this file based on instructions borrowed from blog.kitchenmage.com:
A couple days later, Lien sent this other photo of more shapes she'd made. She got yeastier and moved on to brioche, from a Julia Child recipe.
Viet World Kitchen is at core about home cooking. I love to inspire others to be obsessed in the kitchen. These days, time is money and for me, time in the kitchen is always time well spent!
Recipetips.com has a good page on how to shape bread dough into various shapes. Go crazy!
