Easy French baguette recipe

Hello lovelies! Did everyone enjoy the glorious sunshine yesterday? It’s been such a lovely day, sitting down looking at a blue sky writing this post was bliss!

Today’s post is a recipe that’s been a long time coming! It’s been in my drafts for ages while I refined it and found the recipe I was super happy with. And that day has come… May I present, my easy French baguette recipe!

Being French, I obviously could not miss the opportunity to post a baguette recipe. I’ve grown up eating bread in all forms pretty much everyday, and freshly baked baguettes for breakfast at the weekend from my local boulangerie is a staple in my French household. Obviously, baguettes in England are nothing like the French ones (no offense, England) so it became clear to me that making my own bread was going to be unavoidable if I wanted to eat classic French bread.

I’ve tried many recipes but always come back to this baguette recipe, both because it’s super easy and doesn’t actually take ages to do – the dough rises for 2 hours, but that’s the longest part! So, without further ado, let’s tuck into this easy French baguette recipe!

If you’re on the hunt for more French recipes, I also have a delicious, classic French crêpe recipe on the blog 🙂

La technique to make this easy French baguette recipe!

I’ve made this super easy French baguette recipe every weekend for the past three months (I just love it this much), so I feel I have a pretty good grip on how to make it now! I’ve tested a few things along the way and I have found these tips to be the best way to make it:

Don’t use too much flour. I originally started with 350g of flour but quickly realised it was a bit too much, as not all of it would incorporate and I was left with some flour at the bottom of the mixing bowl. Trying to mix it all in was pointless as it just wouldn’t mix in, and it made no difference to the dough at all, it would just be too dense in the end! Going down by 10 grams may seem pointless, but it has made a difference with the excess flour.

Leave the dough to rise for two hours. I used to only rest it for 1h30 and it did rise absolutely fine, but I left it longer one day and I found that it just gave the dough extra oumph, and it helped the baguette be a little more fluffy and soft inside. The longer the better!

Don’t forget to use steam in your oven! What gives a baguette its crust is the steam from the hot water that you placed in your oven during the pre-heating. So if you want a crackling, crusty baguette, you should always make sure you have hot water that will generate steam on the lowest shelf in the oven. I usually boil some water, put it in an oven proof dish and place it in the oven during pre-heating so it’s as hot as it can be.

Use an appropriate baguette tray. I used a simple baking tray with some parchment paper for a long time and don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely fine. But as with everything, using an item designed for the thing you want to do is always best! I used a baguettes tray with holes in it to allow the steam to really work its magic and my baguettes are the crustiest they’ve ever been. I think I will probably invest at some point into a tray from a specific bread brand, but for now this tray is doing the best job!

Make sure your oven is pre-heated properly. This may sound obvious for everyone but me since I’m super impatient and NEVER wait for the oven to heat up, but I’ve tried putting the baguettes in before the oven was fully hot at 240°C and it didn’t turn out as good! So make sure you oven is hot and your water too.

Here’s how to make this easy French baguette recipe!

Easy French baguette recipe

Yield: 2

Prep Time: 2 hours

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes

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Ingredients

• 7g dried instant yeast
• a pinch of salt
• 250ml lukewarm water
• 340g of strong white bread flour

Instructions

1. In a big mixing bowl, combine the dried yeast and the lukewarm water. Stir in the yeast. Leave for ten minutes until the yeast has dissolved.
2. Add in the strong bread flour and the salt to the yeast and waster. Mix it in thoroughly until a dough forms. Don't hesitate to get your hands in there to mix it all in!
3. Cover the bowl with a towel or dish cover and leave the dough to rise in a warm location for 2 hours until the dough has doubled in volume.
4. After 2 hours, pre-heat your oven to the maximum temperature (240°C). Pour about 500ml of water in an oven-proof bowl and pre-heat in the oven.
5. Uncover the bowl. Tip the dough onto a floured surface and cut it into two dough balls.
6. Fashion the two dough balls into two baguettes, roughly about 30cm long.
7. Put the two baguette on your baguette tray, or on some parchment paper on a baking tray.
8. When the oven has pre-heated, put the baguettes on the middle shelf of the oven and leave to cook for 20 to 25 minutes, depending on how brown you like your bread to be!

Let me know if you decide to try this recipe out. I also have a reel coming very soon on my instagram showing how to make it!

Em ♥