I have wanted to try making baguettes for two years now. For some reason I thought it would be very hard to do. There are probably some methods that are very hard, but the one I [finally] tried sure wasn’t! Keeps me wondering WHY I waited two years to get around to trying it?! 🙂
This recipe makes 3 baguettes and oh, were they ever good!!! I ate some for mid-morning snack…. lunch…. mid-afternoon snack…. supper…. and evening snack. A little too much bread maybe, but it was just that yummy. 😉
The recipe is an adaptation from Famous French Desserts’ website.
French Baguette
4 cups Flour (I used 1/2 spelt, 1/2 white flour)
1 tbsp instant yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 cups warm water
Oil for bowl
In a large bowl combine water, salt, and 2 cups flour. Stir in 2 cups of remaining flour until mixture forms a stiff dough.
On a lightly floured surface knead dough with lightly floured hands 8 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Add more flour if needed to keep dough from being too sticky.
Transfer dough to a lightly oiled deep bowl, turning to coat with oil, and let rise, bowl covered with plastic wrap, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 450° F.
Punch down dough and form into long 2-3 slender loaves. Put loaves on a lightly greased large baking sheet and let rise, uncovered, about 20 minutes. (Baguette may be made up to this point 4 hours ahead and chilled.)
Make 3 or 4 diagonal slashes on loaf with a sharp knife. Place a bowl of boiling water in oven*, in bottom rack. Bake loaves in middle of oven about 20 minutes, or until golden, and transfer to a rack to cool.
*After placing the loaves in the oven, quickly pour a cup of boiling water in a metal dish in the rack under the bread.
How much sugar did you use?
Oops, thanks for catching that mistake! I’m used to using sugar in breads so when typing out the instructions I wrote sugar. There is no sugar in this recipe! Very tasty just as it is, and the yeast still works. I used instant yeast (updated that above too). If using traditional yeast and needed to proof the yeast, you may want to add a 1 tsp or so of yeast to help it do so.
Awesome, I’ll have to try it! Thanks so much for all your ideas I really appreciate your insights and recipes!
Aw, thanks for the compliment. Glad I can help others! 🙂
Just pulled these out of the oven about 1/2 hour ago, and they are SO yummy! I will definitely be making them again. I only did half the recipe, just to give it a try, but I think we could have used the full recipe 🙂
Oh good!!! So glad you like them! Isn’t it easy?! I’m shocked at how easy it is. I thought baguettes were really hard. 🙂 Of course they’re a bit different texture than store-bought, and I think that has to do with our home ovens not going as high temperature-wise as store-bought. But I still love them! Mmmm. 🙂 They make good kid-size French toast too, if you have any leftovers. 😉
[…] fill me up and keep me going without needing a snack mid-afternoon. I also tried Anne Jisca’s baguette recipe a few days ago, and we all LOVED them! (I used 1/4 spelt flour, 1/4 whole wheat pastry flour and […]
they look the real-deal.. been searching for a good baguette recipe for long. interesting that u put water inside the oven, nice trick i dint know of
I hope you like this recipe! We really love it! 🙂
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