Flute

[Quizmonster]

I've had a hunt around the Internet but can't find what I specifically want. Basically, I am trying to discover whether a 'flute' - slim French loaf - is just a skinny version of a 'baguette' or created from a different recipe altogether. If anyone can direct me to a recipe for a flute - the Internet is awash with recipes for baguettes! - I'd be grateful.

[camille79]

I have spent a lot of time in France and, in my experience, a flute is exactly as you describe - a skinny baguette.  However, they tend to come in more varieties (poppy, sesame, wholegrain etc).  Hope this helps!

[Clanad]

One source offers the following:

La Baguette: The Bread of Equality
Amazing but true: On 15 November 1793 (26 Brumaire Year II under the Revolutionary calendar), the government decreed that all of France must eat the same bread. It was up to the bakers to bake this bread of equality. No longer would white bread be for the rich, and bran bread for the poor. In 1856, Napoleon in turn attempted to regulate the size and weight of bread: 40 cm long and weighing approximately 300 grams.

It was after the Second World War that bakers all over France began making baguettes. Today, the baguette has different regional names, for example "flute" or "petite". It is 80 cm long and weighs 250 grams; its price is set by the State.

And from another:

Eurobuns has introduced two new part-baked products to its Le Pain Chic range of French breads. Petite Baguette is a 130g single serving baguette that caters for larger appetites, and is said to be the ideal vehicle for "big-eat" menu items, such as the all-day breakfast roll.

The Large Flute is a traditional 400g baguette, that caterers can put to a multitude of uses including garlic bread slices.

And... finally, this:

A couple of decades ago, Bernard Ganachaud, scion of a family of bakers, in his bakery in the distant 20th, produced a formula and process that achieved some local and then city-wide fame. His daughters have now taken over, continue using his methods, and have licensed it to other small boulangers, so the Flute Gana, a baguette, is available spottily all over Paris.

Appears terms are somewhat interchangeable, but still French Bread recipe... Sorry this couldn't be more satisfying... Bien amicalment!

[SteveD]

I always thought that a "fl�te" was a slim baguette but thet's not what it says here:

Pains par dimension (en France) :
le pain
la miche, environ 1 kg
la baguette, 250 g
la fl�te, 400 g, variante de la baguette, de m�me longueur mais d'�paisseur double.
le b�tard, de m�me section que le pain mais de m�me poids que la baguette.
la ficelle

This is from Wikip�dia (note the accent):

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain

 

 

[Quizmonster]

Thanks, folks, but I'm even more puzzled now than when I asked, what with suggestions that the flute is really fatter than the baguette etc! I always thought a flute was so called because it is flute-shaped...ie long and thin, like the musical instrument. From the description, it sounds as if you could scarcely get your hands around the blessed thing, never mind put it in your mouth and 'play' it!
What I'm talking about is probably no more than 1�" in diameter along its entire length. And I'm still not clear as to whether the ingredients are the same as in a baguette, though it would seem so.
Still...thanks again.

[SteveD]

QM, in your search, did you come across this site?:

http://www.bagatelle.co.uk/wholesale/bakery/bread-baguette-sandwich.php

A fl�te seems to be a 400g product, about as long as a baguette but almost twice the weight so therefore thicker.  I think that, in France, baguettes are thinner than the ones you get in the UK (or here in Belgium come to that).  The really thin ones are called ficelles ("strings").  I think that they all require the same ingredients.

I seem to remember reading a long time ago that the reason you cannot get a "proper" French baguette in the UK is because a different variety of wheat is used to make the flour in France.

[Clanad]

Now... should we talk about Boule's and Batard's?

[Gef]

Hmmm, I am now getting a hunger for real French bread as opposed to the stuff you get in the UK.