Brie and butter baguette sandwich on homemade poolish baguettes

Poolish: whisk 120 g bread flour, a tiny pinch of instant yeast and 118 g cool water until no dry flour remains. Cover and leave at room temperature 12 to 18 hours.

Whisk the bread flour, instant yeast and kosher salt (to keep the yeast from the salt); add the lukewarm water and the poolish and mix with a rubber spatula until just combined.

Turn out onto an unfloured surface and slap and fold, or knead, 8 to 15 minutes, until soft, elastic and passing the windowpane test.

Bulk ferment covered at room temperature an hour and a half; halfway through, lift and fold the dough from the edge into the centre five or six times, rotating.

Divide on a lightly oiled surface (four for small baguettes, two for robust ones); shape into taut balls, cover and rest 15 minutes.

Pat each into a rough rectangle, fold each long side to the centre and press to seal, then fold a little at a time pressing the seam shut with the heel of the hand.

Roll from the centre outward, increasing pressure toward the ends to taper them.

Proof about 45 minutes, either in a perforated baguette pan inside an inflated proofing bag or in a heavily floured couche under a lightly dampened cloth, until about doubled; the second batch proofed a full hour.

Score five long overlapping diagonal slashes, deeper than shown, with a lame, razor or the sharpest knife.

Bake at 450F, on a pizza stone via a floured peel or in the baguette pan, 17 to 20 minutes, to an internal 195 to 205F and a deep brown crust; spraying the loaves generously with water before baking gave a crackly crust.

Split a baguette lengthwise, slather both sides with butter, salt lightly if the butter is unsalted, and stack with sliced brie.