Baton bread was one of the most delicious breads from my childhood.
The most delicious sandwiches can be made with baton. It is super soft, has a creamy flavor.
Try it and you will love it.
Ingredients
Sourdough Sponge
- 30 g sourdough starter
- 225 g water
- 250 g bread flour
Dough
- all sourdough sponge on it’s peak
- 250 g bread flour
- 10 g salt
- 30 g sugar
- 25g soft unsalted butter
- 30-40g water
Shiny glaze
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 2 tbs water
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/2 cup hot boiling water
Directions
Day 1
Sponge
- 10 pm dissolve sourdough starter on it’s peak in the water, add flour, mix well with spoon, cover let ferment at room temp 74-76F until it increases in volume in 2 or more times (learn how to make sourdough starter from scratch here).
Day 2
Dough
- 8 am By this time sponge should grew 2 times or more. In a bowl of stand mixer add all sponge, sugar, salt, flour.
- Mix dough on low speed of your mixing machine for 5 minutes, or KitchenAid on speed 3 for 7 minutes until well incorporated.
- Add soft butter, increase the speed of mixer, mix for 10 more minutes until the dough is well incorporated.
Note: if the dough seems too stiff, add 20g water, continue kneading. If it still too stiff, add 10-20g more.
The dough should come up together and have a smooth surface.
- Cover the dough and let it proof for 3-4 hours at 78-86F/ 28-30C until double or more in volume.
- Divide the dough in 2 equal pieces.
- Shape each loaf as a batard, by folding 2 top edges to make a triangle top, then roll the top into itself, creating a tight roll.
- Transfer the shaped loaves onto a tray, cover, and let them proof for 1-3 hours at 78-86F/28-30C until double or more in volume.
- Preheat the oven to 450F and cast iron pan for at least 30 minutes
- Score the loaves, bake them for 10 min with steam (or with lid on).
- Lower the temperature to 400F open the lid, bake for 20 more minutes, until golden brown.
- Meanwhile prepare the shiny glaze by mixing cornstarch, water and sugar together. Then add hot boiling water and mix until no lumps remain.
- Remove the bread from the oven.
- Generously spread the shiny glaze all over your loaves.
- Let the bread cool down.
Enjoy!
Summary
Recipe Name
Russian Baton Bread with Sourdough
Author Name
Natalya Syanova
Published On
Preparation Time
Cook Time
Total Time
Average Rating
Based on 21 Review(s)
Mmmm, looks wonderful! I don’t have a cast-iron pan, so could I use two loaf pans?
Yes, you can, but you will have to create a steam in first 10 min of baking.
Can you please include a link for the cast iron pan you used?
Hi!
I’m using this pan
https://challengerbreadware.com/product/challenger-bread-pan/?ref=Natashasbaking
Thanks a million!
Turned out well as one round loaf. Delish, hard to resist.
Uma divindade 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
🙏🙏🙏
I made this bread today, it’s so soft and delicious. Thank you Natasha🌷
Thank you so much for your feedback!
Im so glad you liked it. It’s one of my favorite 🙏
Mmmm, good, made it Wednesday. I liked that it only took two days. Have been enjoying it! Nice texture and flavor. My husband said this is great sourdough, why don’t the sandwich buns you make taste sour too? (Which use starter too.) I guess the extra butter and eggs hide the sourness, I have no idea. Anyways, for the Russian Baton, I did add 10g more of the starter (just to be sure) and ended up mixing everything all at the same time, including the butter and 35g water. I did find a cast iron pan that worked, it is for making pancakes on my stove-top and I tented the loaves with aluminum foil.
Can I switch out some of the bread flour for white whole wheat? What percentage do you think would be a good amount?
Barbara, thank you so much for your feedback!
Small amount of yeast, can speed up the process, and make it less sour.
For whole wheat, I would suggest to replace up to 30%.
Great! Not a problem with the sourness, just think it is interesting that one recipe is and the other isn’t and both are using only starter, no commercial yeast. Baking only with starter for the last two years has been an interesting journey!
Hi Natasha, sorry for asking, does it need window pane ? thanks
I didn’t check windowpane, but the surface has to look smooth.
I did the windowpane, but I have found when making any bread dough, once all the ingredients are added and after the autolyze, if I allow the mixer to go 15 minutes or so (I am using a small Globe mixer at speed 2) the dough becomes very elastic and the windowpane is a given.
I have made it, it was so soft and yumm… thanks for the recipe 👍👍👍
Thank you so much for your feedback 🙏
Great recipe! Just one question: this seems to be a recipe for one loaf. The instructions talk about two loaves. Did I miss something?
Hi!
This recipe is for 2 loaves.
🙏
What would be the best way to create steam in the oven?
Also, how big in diameter my cast iron skillet should be in order to fit one loaf in?
P. S. Love your recipes.
I’m using a Challenger bread pan, it fits 2 loaves perfectly.
Thank you 🙏
This makes an excellent sandwich bread. And the final coating gave it a beautiful look (but I only need half as much as called for – maybe I should have brushed the bottoms, too?)
My kitchen is cold now (67°) so it took 3 times as long to proof but that didn’t make it sour. Definitely a keeper!
Adam, thank you so much for your kind feedback. Wintertime I’m proofing the bread in oven with light on. It gives perfect 76-82F
I use my oven light for proofing as well, but since the temperature is about 105, I prop the door open for about 1″ so it isn’t quite so warm.
Hi Natalya! I’m out of bread flour. Will this work with all purpose flour? Thanks!
Hi!
Yes!
It should work 🙏
This looks delicious. Do you put the glaze on after you finish baking?
Yes, when the bread is still hot.
Do we have to use a stand mix? Can we do it by hand? Sorry, I’ve never done it before.
Hi,
Absolutely love the recipe! Made it multiple times now!
I wanted to add some seeds / cheese / jalapeños to the recipe just to start experimenting.
In which step of the recipe would you recommend adding the ingredients and what technique would you use for this – for example would I stretch out the dough and springle the ingredients – then continue with the shapeing process?
Thanks a lot !
Hi!
Thank you for your feedback
You can add inclusions during the mixing, when butter is almost incorporated.
Or after mixing, stretch the dough very thin and add inclusions, then fold back and proof it.
Hello,
Thank you for your recipes and hard work. I have a general question about choosing proper baking pan for oval breads? What can I get instead of Challenger pan since it’s slightly on the pricier side?
Can I use oval Dutch oven?
Thank you!
Hi Natasha! I’ve recently found your recipes and all of your breads look wonderful. I’ve just started my journey with your recipes, I’ve never before used recipes not in my native language so I think maybe I understood something wrong – I have a problem with doubling the volume of the dough and loaves, the bread taste amazing, but they are rather small and definitely the dough does not double the volume during growth 🙁 I have a stable and active sourdough starter, other breads grow normally when I use the starter, I used bread flour type 750.