Week 4- Baking/Dessert: French Baguette

I got a bread maker for Christmas in 2002. I thought it was the best thing ever... such a treat to have fresh bread with dinner. The bread maker didn't make the trip to Brazil, so I started making bread with my standing mixer's dough attachment and baking it in the oven. I haven't gone back to the bread maker since we returned! Usually I just make white or wheat bread in a loaf pan, but for some reason since we moved to Iowa I feel like I cannot find a good place to buy baguettes. I figured it was time to take matters into my own hands. I'm interested to try the recipes in Cook's Illustrated and The Bread Baker's Apprentice, but both require you to start the day before you're going to bake. That hasn't happened yet, so I have used Tyler Florence's recipe here a couple times now. First of all, the directions in the recipe are off. I used my kitchen scale to make sure the ingredients were in the right proportions, but the dough seemed sticky to me. I did not change the amounts the second time around, but I did change the way I prepared the loaves. First of all, I didn't let them rise on the baking sheet-- I put them on a sheet of parchment sprayed with cooking spray. (Letting them rise on the sheet seemed to ensure that they would be impossible to remove after they are baked.) Secondly, I cut the slits before the rise (I know bakers consider scoring a baguette to be an art, but for me it just flattened them out). Then I skipped the milk. Finally and MOST IMPORTANTLY I baked them for about 22 minutes. With those modifications, I thought these were good. Better than what i can buy here. Not terribly complex, but great for sopping up beef stew or lasagna. I would definitely make them again when I figure out on the "day of" that I want to bake baguettes.