One Of The Best Baguettes From France

What comes to your mind when you think of baguettes? France of course!

With its many little cafés and boulangeries that can be found in every corner of the city. Having breakfast and looking at the Eiffel Tower – this sounds like the perfect start into your holiday, right?

If your next holiday is still far away we can only recommend you to try out this recipe for one of the best baguettes from France as it will make you feel like being there right away.

Enjoy it and take some time off!

Things to know before you start

Time Schedule

Don’t be reluctant to try this recipe out because of the overall high waiting time of over 48 hours. This time is really needed to develop the outstanding taste and structure for the baguette. On the other side the total working time is about 1 hour, so you will be able to taste these baguettes in about 51 hours.

Total ingredients

You will have a dough of about 611 g in total suitable for 3 baguettes.

Difficulty

Baking a tasty baguette is relatively easy. Creating the known and desired shape is the hard part, like only opening at the scored parts during the baking process and an open crumb with big pores. You will most probably need several attempts until you get to the point, but see it as a challenge to strive for!

Therefore the difficulty for this recipe is between moderate and expert.

Baking tools

You will need a bakers couche for the proofing phase and a bread lame is highly recommended. You can find both things in our should have baking tools overview.

Steps

1. Mix

• Mix salt, sugar and crumbled yeast with water in a separate bowl to dissolve
• Water straight from the tap is perfectly fine

• Mix all of the mentioned ingredients together in a stand mixer for 2 minutes on speed one and 6 minutes on speed two
• The dough should be elastic and smooth
• It is also perfectly fine to mix all ingredients by hand for about 15 minutes

2. Bulk Fermentation, Stretch & Fold

• Cover the dough and let it rest for a total of 60 minutes at 24°C (75,2°F)
• During that time stretch & fold the dough every 20 minutes (3 times in total)
• Afterwards put the dough in a sealed container and place it in the fridge at 4-6°C (39,2-42,8°F) for 48 hours

3. Shape

• Spread your bakers couche out on the counter
• Dust it with a decent amount of all-purpose flour
• Short guide on how to get the dough into the shape of a baguette:

1. Take the dough out on a floured surface
2. Divide it into 3 pieces equalling each one to about 200 g
3. Take one piece and put some flour on top
4. Cover the other ones with a clean kitchen towel so they don’t dry out
5. Gently pre-shape it into a cylindrical form
6. Fold the top side halfway to the bottom so the edge is in the middle and press the edge gently down
7. Turn it around 180 degrees so the bottom side is now facing top
8. Fold the top side about 3/4 to the bottom so the edge is past the edge you previously pressed down in the middle and again press the edge gently down
9. Pinch the seam together with your fingers so it closes as good as possible
10. Gently roll the dough towards you so the seam-side is on the surface
11. Place both of your hands in the middle of the dough
12. Slightly roll your hands back and forth while keeping the seam-side of the dough on the surface and simultaneously moving your left hand to the left and your right hand to the right creating a cone that tapers at the end
13. Place the dough seam-side up on the bakers couche

• Repeat the process from step 3 to 12 for each dough
• Here is a short video from us on how all of this is done:

4. Proof

• All three of your previously shaped doughs should already be placed seam-side-up on the bakers couche
• Pull up the bakers couch a bit between the doughs so they don’t stick to each other
• Add some flour on top of the doughs
• Cover them with the other half of the bakers couche
• Let them proof for 30 minutes at 24°C (74,2°F)

5. Score

• Cover a pizza peel with parchment paper
• Gently put / roll the baguettes seam-side-down on the pizza peel

• The correct position of your cuts is very important in order for the baguettes to open up at the right spots and keeping their shape
• Take your bread lame and score four times (about 2 cm deep) in an angle of 35 to 40 degrees diagonally from left to right
• The cuts should overlap at about 30% prior to the previous cut
• Checkout the following pictures for a better demonstration on where you should score and how:

• Additionally you can check this short video on how one of our baguettes was scored:

6. Bake

• Preheat oven to 250°C (482°F) for ~45 minutes with the upper and lower heat function
• Put all three baguettes at the same time in the oven, create steam and bake for 25 minutes
• After 10 minutes lower the temperature to 230°C (446°F), let the steam out by opening the oven door for ~45 seconds and close it again
• Checkout the following video of the baking process in timelapse and result:

7. Cool

• Let your baguettes cool for about 15 minutes on some kind of grid

Conclusion

Crust

The crust is deliciously crunching when you bite into this freshly baked baguette. It has the perfect three shades of brown, light, middle and dark.

Crumb

The crumb is so fluffy with big and irregular pores. Due to the crunchy crust it will not tear apart when you add some butter on top for example.

Taste

This baguette has such a good and strong taste with a slight saltiness. This is due to the long bulk fermentation time that lets the dough develop it’s full power and flavour. Good things always take their time… and these taste like holiday!

Goes good with

As always, it is down to what you prefer. We can recommend it with a good Serrano ham, fromage blanc or marmalade.

Try to eat them while they are still warm as they taste the best during that time. Just a bit of butter is pretty much anything you need. A bit of butter underlines the Baguettes own delicious flavour.

Credits

This recipe was inspired by Frankreichs bestes Baguette 1995 und 2006.

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