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.

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.

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.

Simply drench your rock-hard baguette in cold water then tightly wrap it in aluminum foil. Next, place the wrapped baguette in the oven (not preheated), then set the temperature to 300°F and let is heat for 12 to 15 minutes.

First and foremost, the flour used in France is of very high quality. But the major difference between French and an American baguette is the fermentation process. Most French bakers use a poolish process, which consists of a mix of yeast and water that's allowed to ferment overnight.

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.

Strong French style White Bread Flour; type T55 is ideal for making bread, puff pastries, croissants and baguettes. This type of flour is best known for making croissants. This Flour gives a light open textured loaf with a crisp crust.

T55 flour is often considered an all-purpose flour, offering a balanced composition that contributes to the desired texture and structure in various baked goods.

T45 : This is a white flour generally used for pastries, cakes, etc., but also for pizza dough. T55 : This is a white flour used for "white" or "ordinary" bread, pastry doughs and pizzas. T65 : This is also a white flour used to make farmhouse bread, special breads (traditional) and pizza dough.

'Le quignon' is the pointy end of the baguette.

Do French people eat a whole baguette a day? ›

Of all the food in the country, the French baguette is perhaps the one that most unites France and its culture. Okay, so perhaps that's overstating it a tiny bit. But the French — every man, woman and child of them — do manage to eat an entire baguette every day. To many French a meal without a baguette is not a meal.

This thin-crusted variety of French Bread—more commonly known as the Baguette, Po' Boy Loaf or Sunday Cap Bread—is fundamental to the New Orleans gastronomy. Each version of the French bread is slightly different. The baguette is the traditional 18-inch loaf that is served in many New Orleans restaurants.

Commercial bread is softer due to the steam process used by bakeries, which is made to keep bread hydrated and fresh. Use cold water in a pan and put it on a rack beneath your bread to create steam.

You want to rise the dough so that the yeast still has enough energy in it to work in the oven to give you a nice, light, fluffy loaf of white bread. Lightly cover the loaf pans with plastic wrap - do not make it too tight as you don't want the dough to rise up and get trapped in the plastic wrap.

As Our Everyday Life explains, baguettes tend to get hard quickly because they contain only flour, water, and yeast — but no fat. Without fat, it can't retain moisture, and that's why breads made with oil, milk, or butter have a much longer shelf life than baguettes.

Paris Baguette also only used its own proprietary dough, which was lighter, airier and less sweet than traditional dough to create its unique offerings.

"Our pastries and breads are freshly baked and cakes made on-site at each café, which gives us a point of differentiation," explained Cathy Chavenet, chief marketing officer. "We work with high-quality ingredients, and we stay seasonally relevant.

Carefully pour the boiling water into the cast iron pan, and quickly shut the oven door. The billowing steam created by the boiling water will help the baguettes rise, and give them a lovely, shiny crust. Bake the baguettes — on the pan, or on a stone — for 24 to 28 minutes, or until they're a very deep golden brown.

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!