French Bread – Easy to make Baguette

I hesitate to call this a baguette recipe because I feel that the only French bakers in boulangeries françaises can qualify themselves to share authentic recipes for these symbols of France.

But I am qualified to say that this is a damn good, easy-to-follow recipe for crusty, long French bread. Bread that’s got a crispy, crunchy exterior and a chewy, moist interior. Bread that’s flavourful and perfect to enjoy as is or used to make the most delicious sandwiches. But above all, bread that is so easy to make that anyone can do it in their home.

No knead bread

Many artisanal breads like the baguette or focaccia contain a lot of water, in baking talk, these are called high hydration doughs. This baguette recipe is a 70% hydration dough which means that there is roughly 70g of water to every 100g of flour. The resulting bread will have a more open crumb structure and be more moist.

The techniques with working and handling high hydration doughs are different than regular yeasted bread doughs. Instead of mechanical kneading of the dough, as the case with my Japanese Milk Bread. High hydration doughs like these baguettes, rely on time and stretching to develop and strengthen gluten structures. And the method is so easy that anyone can learn it, making these bread completely manageable for the average home baker, even for a beginner!

Long fermentation

Aside from flour, water, yeast and salt, time is added to give this baguette their robust, complex flavour. Basically, you mix up the dough the night before and stretch it twice before putting it into the fridge overnight. It can sit there for anywhere between 12-24 hours. The next day, you bring it out, shape it, let it rise for a short time again at room temperature and bake it! Super simple right?

It takes a bit of planning ahead but the dough and the yeast does all the work, no extra effort from you! In return, you are rewarded with a superior, strong flavoured bread than if you were to bake it on the same day.

Water and steam

Water is not only an important component within the dough, it is also necessary during the baking process. We need to generate steam to help keep the exterior of the baguette soft in the first minutes of baking in the very hot oven. If a hard crust forms immediately, the interior won’t have enough space to rise and puff up as much as we would like.

Most home ovens are not equipped with steam functions so we must create the steam by other methods. Enter: hot water baths and spray bottles. They are the economical way to inject steam into the baking process, essential tools to get that crispy, crunchy, chewy crust.

Storage and reheating

This baguette recipe makes two long breads and while it takes no time for my family to go through them, I must admit that it might be too much in one go for others.

So my suggestion would be to par-bake one of the baguette and take it out after 12-15min in the hot oven. Cool it down and freeze it. When you want to eat a freshly baked French bread, just bake in a preheated 482F/250C oven for 8-10min, with steam of course!