Recipe & Video Extra Crusty French Baguette

[Hungry Man]

First of all, this is not a quick / lazy way to make baguettes but it works. Please note that for this attempt, I used an Italian brewers yeast (lievito di birra) and it worked quite well. Normally I'm using instant yeast available in the market.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd7vuYZTvtY


Ingredients: (for 2 smaller or 1 medium size bread)

- 200 g white flour​

- 150g warm water (~40C)​

- 2g instant yeast​

- 5 g salt​

Method:

Pour 150g warm water into a bowl and add yeast and a spoonful of flour. Stir it and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. This is just for yeast proofing. In 5-10 mins you should see bubbles on the water surface.​

​

- Mix the flour and the salt in a large bowl.​

- Pour the water & yeast mix into the bowl and mix them well (I used the handle of a wooden spoon).​

- Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap or wet cloth and let is rest for 1 hour.​

- Now the dough should be a bit easier to work with. Remove the wrap and gently hold one side of the dough, stretch it up as much as you can and then fold it back. Do this for each side of the dough by rotating the bowl. Let it rest for another 30 mins. Hopefully, it’s easier to see this on the video.​

We are repeating this step 4 times and between each rest period, we are applying the stretch & fold process. (4 x 30mins rest and stretch&fold in between the rests)​

- Cover your work surface with flour and form a rough square shape by lightly pressing and stretching it out with your finger tips.​

- Cover the dough with a towel or cloth and let them rest for another 20mins.​

- Now, stretch & shape the dough again if necessary and fold them in half and do it once more until you have a rough cylindrical shape. Seal the seams lightly with your fingertips. Then gently roll the edges of the dough to have the baguette shape.​

- Place the dough to a baking tray / couche with a baking paper.​

- Cover them with a towel and let them rest for another 1 hour for them to grow in size.​

- Pre-heat the oven to 250 degree celcius and place a baking pan filled with water on the lowest rack of the oven.​

- Spray the dough with warm water using a spray bottle.​

- For scoring give them a long and deep slash on the sides with a very sharp knife.​

- Place them into the pre-heated oven and start baking.​

- After 5mins, open the oven and give the baguette a spray with a spraying bottle.​

- After you see the golden crust forming on the baguette give them another spray. (I do this once in a while to enhance the crust)​

- Bake the baguette until they have proper crust on each side.​

Eat them while they are still warm and enjoy with some butter I guess

 

[Morning Glory]

Thank you for posting. I was waiting to see if your baguette was American style (with holes in the dough) or French style. We had a discussion about this elsewhere.

The bread looks great! Can I ask how/where you learned the technique?

 

[Hungry Man]

Thank you for posting. I was waiting to see if your baguette was American style (with holes in the dough) or French style. We had a discussion about this elsewhere.

The bread looks great! Can I ask how/where you learned the technique?

Thank you. What do you think, does it look American or French?
There is no single resource really; couple of years ago I worked on this, using several recipes from youtube and recipe sites. I kinda adjusted the recipes to my liking (extra thick and crunchy crust). But the main technique (stretch and fold) is used by almost all of the French baguette recipes found online.

 

[Morning Glory]

Thank you. What do you think, does it look American or French?

American - but I'm now beginning to doubt that I am right. MrsDangermouse and I who have both eaten French baguette lots in France, believe that the type with holes isn't the usual kind you get in bakeries there. But if I google and look at images of 'French bread in France', a lot do seem to display holes. Its no use image googling 'French Baguette' because most of the images are American.

 

[MrsDangermouse]

American - but I'm now beginning to doubt that I am right. MrsDangermouse and I who have both eaten French baguette lots in France, believe that the type with holes isn't the usual kind you get in bakeries there. But if I google and look at images of 'French bread in France', a lot do seem to display holes. Its no use image googling 'French Baguette' because most of the images are American.

In my experience in France there are two main types of baguettes: normal ones (the cheapest ones) and the baguette tradition which is normally a few cents more expensive and does tend to have the larger holes (it also tastes nicer). Most bakeries sell both....sometimes they ask if you want ordinaire or tradition, other times they just give you their default one unless you specify otherwise.

 

[Burt Blank]

200 g white flour

Which type of flour did you use mate ?

In my experience in France there are two main types of baguettes: normal ones (the cheapest ones) and the baguette tradition which is normally a few cents more expensive and does tend to have the larger holes (it also tastes nicer).

Their is a law in France that was bought in back in the day, because the French complained that the baguettes they bought in the morning for lunch went dry by lunch.
Bakeries that produce bread from scratch, they are allowed to call themselves Artisan Boulanger and they are provided with a plaque. "This seal of authenticity means that your baker is the real deal, rather than a depot de pain, a shop that merely sells bread that was baked elsewhere.Or buy and bake industrially-made frozen loaves like Supermarkets do.
No Artisan bakery can or would sell inferior product because of reputation and the law. The French take their bread very seriously.