Homemade French Baguette Recipe | Walking on Sunshine (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret of the French baguette? ›

One of the secrets of a great baguette is to start with a sponge (a mix of flour, water, and yeast), which gives the yeast time to mature and combine with the other ingredients, creating the mildly sour and nutty flavors and chewy texture.

Secret three: Preheat the oven for baking with a pan of boiling water. Then once ready to bake, spray the oven with water for extra steam. THIS is what will give you the crunchy crust. An absolute necessity for a classic French Baguette!

One of the things that makes French bread different is the way French create the yeast starters for our dough. Our starters are carefully cultivated and nurtured for an extended period of time, allowing the dough to ferment and attain the richest possible flavour.

Overall, the ideal flour for baguettes should have a moderate protein content, a fine texture, and should be of high quality. While traditional French type 55 flour is the ideal choice, a combination of all-purpose and bread flour can also work well in its place.

Baguette or pain courant, which is what we typically call “French bread,” would be more of a commercial style (cottony texture and yeasted) whereas baguette de tradition would be more of the long-fermented style.

Set the baguette wrapped in aluminum foil on the counter and try to use it within 1 day. Avoid refrigerating the baguette since the refrigerator will introduce moisture and cause the bread to harden faster. Freeze a wrapped baguette for up to 3 months.

The structure of gluten plays a massive part in how your bread is formed and the gas production it creates is what develops the air pockets in bread, allowing it to rise. If your dough is not kneaded enough, the right amount of gas will not be released and it will result in a very dense bread with little moisture.

Lean doughs like a baguette, for example, will quickly go stale because of its narrow shape and the lack of fat. On the other hand, breads with a higher fat content, such as challah or brioche, will stay fresh longer.

Adding steam to the oven by adding water or ice to a preheated baking tray or pan will help develop that crust. Make sure that your oven temperature is nice and high, we want to cook these quickly to help with that crust, but avoid an over baked crumb.

The flour you used may have contained too much protein. Protein is one of the ingredients that help yeast bread brown.

What should the crumb of a baguette look like? ›

Like the short mix, the crumb is creamy, with large holes or alveoli due to the fermentation time and high hydration (baguette crumb on the right).

One baguette contains approximately 170 grams of carbohydrates while one serving, or a 4-inch slice of a baguette contains around 35 grams of carbohydrates. Baguettes are high in carbohydrates, with one 4-inch baguette slice containing 30% of the daily recommended carbohydrate intake.

Standard baguettes, baguettes ordinaires, are made with baker's yeast, and artisan-style loaves are usually made with a pre-ferment (poolish) to increase flavor complexity and other characteristics.

Typically, French flour for breadmaking is Type 55 or T55. The higher the number, the more of the whole grain it contains. The type number refers to the amount mineral content.

Traditional baguettes are made with wheat flour with no additives, water, salt, and yeast or sourdough starter. They are the result of a perfectly managed fermentation process, and haven't undergone any flash freezing during preparation.

A baguette (/bæˈɡɛt/; French: [baɡɛt]) is a long, thin type of bread of French origin that is commonly made from basic lean dough (the dough, not the shape, is defined by French law). It is distinguishable by its length and crisp crust.

The French bread law

The law states that traditional baguettes have to be made on the premises they're sold and can only be made with four ingredients: wheat flour, water, salt and yeast. They can't be frozen at any stage or contain additives or preservatives, which also means they go stale within 24 hours.

Traditional baguettes have a dense crumb inside, with a creamy ivory color and large, irregular air pockets. These pockets are the hollows left behind after the bubbles produced during fermentation and developed by the heat while the bread is being baked.