A ficelle is a French mini baguette effectively. The word literally means ‘string’ in French. They’re delicious just out of the oven and like proper baguettes go off very quickly!
I have just come home for the summer and all I can think about is my up coming holiday to France so I thought I’d make some ficelles to get me in the mood for my holiday! They go great with soups and salads but are also lovely covered in butter. Don’t worry they’re much easier to make than baguettes because they are smaller and so are easier to handle. This recipe makes about 8 ficelles.
The recipe is as follows:
200g strong white flour
50g wholemeal flour
5g salt
5g yeast
230ml water
1 tsp olive oil
Some semolina and dried thyme for dusting.
Start by placing the flours, salt and yeast in a bowl. Add the oil and the water. Mix the ingredients together to form a dough. Knead the dough for 10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Then place in an oiled bowl to rise for 1 hour. Be warned, the wholemeal flour will make the dough hard to knead at first but keep going!
Carefully handle the dough so that no air comes out and divide into 8 pieces. Roll each piece out to become long strings that are 1 cm wide and about 25cm long.
the dough divided into 8 pieces
Leave the pieces to prove on baking trays for about 30 minutes. Sprinkle over some semolina and thyme for seasoning and then place in a preheated oven at 230°c for 15 minutes. If you’re not a fan of thyme, oregano or rosemary would also go great with this bread. The bread should be golden on top once out of the oven. Leave to cool on a rack. Enjoy!
More bread less dough 