No one wants to heat up the house during the dog days of summer. I have combined two of my favorite recipes to make mini-baguettes that I mix in a food processor and bake in the toaster oven/air fryer (Overnight sourdough bread from hostessatheart.com and Quick French Bread from Cuisine Rapide by Pierre Franey).

First, a word about sourdough. You don't need to do all that feeding and discarding (so wasteful and time consuming!). I began with a commercial dry starter and mixed it in a pint jar with water. I store it in the refrigerator. When I want to bake, I feed it with equal parts flour and warm water, and let it sit on the counter. The starter is ready when it has the consistency of pancake batter and has lots of bubbles. I like to have the pint jar at least 3/4 full. After you use what you need of the starter, feed it again, let it sit on the counter until it's bubbly, then store it in the refrigerator for next time.

For the recipe, you'll need

3/4 cup Starter
1 cup + 3 Tablespoons Water
4 cups + 2 Tablespoons Flour
1-1/2 tsp. Salt

Place the chopping blade in the food processor bowl. Pour in your starter and the water, then the flour and salt. (It's very important to put the liquid in first, otherwise your food processor will overflow.) Pulse until the batter begins to form a ball.

Flour a board and knead the dough on it, forming a dough. Spray a bowl with baking spray, place the dough in the bowl, and turn the dough so it's coated on top. Cover with plastic wrap and leave it overnight (I place mine in a cold oven).

In the morning, cut a piece of parchment paper to the size of your baking square and cover your baking square. (Parchment paper can be re-used many times.) Place the dough on a floured board and cut into four pieces. Shape the mini-baguettes by rolling (think Playdough snakes). Diagonally score the loaves about 1/2 inch deep three times to let the steam out as they bake. Spray the loaves with water to help produce a thin crust. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

Voila!