Hi Claire, kneading the dough for 15-20 minutes by hand probably didn't cause your baguettes to turn out hard and dry, but if you kneaded it for that long on the mixer that could have resulted in excessive gluten development, which might make for harder baguettes. Next time I would keep your kneading time to no more than 8-10 minutes when kneading by hand. In a stand mixer you could blend all the ingredients together on the lowest speed for a few minutes, and then knead on speed 2 (on a KitchenAid) for 3-4 minutes.

Did you weight your flour, or measure by cups? It sounds like your dough might have been a bit on the stiff side, which could indicate you added a little too much flour. This is easy to do if you measure your flour by cups and tend to scoop the flour into the cup. For our flour and recipes we recommend either weighing your flour, or using this method to measure by volume. If you added too much flour to the recipe, this might have contributed to your results. 

Overbaking or allowing the baguettes to cool in the oven is probably the most likely cause of hard and dry baguettes. 

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