Less stretching & folding, less wet, less steps, but you do need a mixer for this one…
This method is easier, the recipe has less steps, the dough is less wet than our 80% hydration baguette recipe, and yet this one also yields wonderful baguettes. If you were to compare the two recipes you could say this easy version has a little less depth of flavor and the holes in the crumb are less impressive, but it is also less laborious and less sticky (saves you 2 hours on baking day). The flavors are actually very much comparable and eaten in combination with other foods like cheese it will be hard to notice much difference in taste.
We think this recipe offers a great place to start for the novice baguette baker. Still, it is not at all the easiest of bread recipes to master, but it is one every home baker wants to have as part of his baking repertoire. And we are confident this recipe will also give you very satisfying results.
So lets start baking! But before we do, you may want to check out our baguette video Watch it here…
And our tips for bread scoring with confidence and handling wet dough may also come in handy.
Last but not least do not forget to stop by our baguette log and follow our baguette baking progress and learn from our experiences and mistakes!
This is what the active poolish looks like
Day 1: Poolish making day
Ingredients for the poolish
380 g bread flour
380 g cold water (straight from the tap)
* 0.7 g instant yeast in ‘summer’ / 1.3 g instant yeast in ‘winter’*
* In winter our bakery is between 16ºC / 61ºF and 18ºC / 65ºF, so we use more yeast to get the poolish going. In summer the average temperature is between 21ºC / 70ºF and 25ºC / 77 ºF so we can use less yeast to get the same result. So take the temperature of your surroundings into account to determine your amount of yeast.
Making the poolish
In a bowl stir together 380 grams of bread flour with 380 grams of cold water with the yeast (see above). Mix until you have a consistency that looks like dough-like batter. Cover the bowl and leave for 12 hours at room temperature. So if you want to begin your baguette baking in the morning, you can make your poolish the evening before.
Day 2: Baguette baking day
Ingredients for the Baguettes
makes 4 baguettes
prepared poolish
380 g bread flour
190 g water at room temperature
12 g salt
2 g instant yeast
Making the Baguettes
In the bowl of your standing mixer, combine the poolish with the other ingredients and knead for 6 minutes. Cover and leave to rest for 40 minutes. Now turn out the mass onto your working surface and stretch and fold, doing two to three sets of letter folds (one set = right over left, left over right, bottom over top, top over bottom) depending on how well your dough cooperates. Stop if the dough is not willing to stretch anymore. Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover and again leave to rest for 40 minutes.
Turn out the dough and stretch and fold a second time, doing one to two sets of letter folds.
Directly after the stretch and fold, divide the dough in 4 equal parts. Now you are going to pre-shape the dough parts one by one by carefully stretching the corners, making a rectangle of each of the 4 pieces, and rolling them up. Try to make your rectangle and roll as even as possible without fussing too much with the dough. Use enough flour to handle the dough, but try to keep it to a minimum. Cover and leave to rest for 10 minutes so the gluten can relax.
Preheat your oven to 240ºC / 465ºF (at what stage you preheat your oven depends on how long it takes for your oven to heat through, some take 30 minutes, some, like ours, with stone floors take a lot longer, up to two hours.)
Take a roll of the pre-shaped dough and sprinkle it with a little flour and softly press it into a rectangle with a short and a long side. The more even the rectangle the nicer the baguette will look in the end. With a dough scraper make sure the dough is not stuck to your work surface with the help of a little bit of flour.
With a dough scraper, flip 1/3 of the long side onto itself and press down the seam, with the heel of your hand, to get some tension on the outside of the dough, now repeat it two more times until you have a roll shape. Make a rolling motion with your hands from the center to the sides with a soft touch to make the baguette longer and to try and make nice pointy ends on both sides of the baguette.
This baguette shaping video on the King Arthur Flour website by Jeffrey Hamelman is really worth a closer look if you are in need of more baguette shaping support.
Practice makes perfect, do not be hard on yourself, it is not an easy job, even with this slightly less sticky dough, compared to the 80% hydration we use for our other baguette recipe.
Place the baguettes in a couche / proofing cloth made of linen or in a baguette pan, or something of your own invention, but make sure the baguettes have enough side support to hold their shape. Cover them and leave to proof for 35 minutes.
Baguettes resting in their couches (beds) made of thick proofing linen
To check if the baguettes are ready, dip your finger in some flour and gently poke your dough.
- If the hole disappears completely: under-proofed
- If the hole dent pops half way back out: proofing is just right
- If the hole stays entirely dented in: over-proofed
Score the top of the baguettes with a lame/bread scoring tool. Cut as straight along the long axis of the loaf as possible. Mentally divide the baguette into lengthwise thirds, and keep the cuts within the middle third. Overlap the cuts by about one third of their length, while holding the knife at a 30 degree angle. Also check out this very useful video on proper baguette scoring.
Do not use this steam generating method with your normal household oven! Check our oven tips first
Bake in the preheated oven for 27 minutes. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
To get a nice crust, try to create some steam in your oven by putting a small metal baking tray on your oven floor when you preheat the oven and pouring in half a cup of hot water immediately after putting the bread in the oven. Release some steam by setting your oven door ajar 5 minutes before the bread is ready. If you are going to create steam with a baking tray, you maybe also want to turn your oven temperature a bit higher, because you are going to lose some heat in the process.
Baguette Time Table
Day 1
Make poolish
Day 2
00:00 Mix ingredients 6 minutes
40 minute rest
00:46 – 2-3 letter folds
40 minute rest
01:26 – 1-2 letter fold + divide + pre-shape
10 minute rest
01:41 – shape + proof
35 minutes final proofing
02:20 – into the oven
Baking time 27 minutes
02:47 – take out and leave to cool
The crumb: the holes are slightly less impressive compared to the 80% hydration recipe, but still very nice texture and taste!
If you are looking for couches / proofing linen for baguettes, we have really good ones made from 100% French bakers linen in our webshop.
hallo marike instant yeast is de poder zakjes,dank je jan
Hallo Jan,
Met instant yeast bedoelen we hetzelfde als de zakjes gedroogde gist die je ook normaal in de supermarkt in Nederland kunt kopen. Meestal zit er in een zakje 7 gram gist.
Marieke
gracias
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Very first try at baguettes, with the help of the good old hand mixer again (about 10 mins.) and the result is fantastic! Nice crust, soft crumb, beautiful holes and very tasty!!! And very rustic looks! The final shape needs working on, but I’m really happy with the result. The amount of dough gave me 8 35 cm long baguettes, all my oven (-stone) can handle …. Thanks again for a great recipe.
Haha, the trusty hand mixer strikes again! Wonderful you were able to adapt the recipe and get great results the first time already! Shaping is just fun to practice with each new bake. Taste, crust and crumb were already pretty much were you want them
. Thanks for the feed back because we cannot help but be happy when our recipe works for other bakers!
Marieke
Wellicht een hele domme vraag, maar ik moet het weten:
Dus “instant gist” (bijv. van Bruggeman) is exact hetzelfde als wat hier in de UK verkocht wordt als “fast action yeast” (de zakjes van 7 gr.), maar anders dan “dried active yeast”, die eerst opgelost moet worden in warm water/suiker?
Heb me hier suf gezocht naar “instant yeast” en reis altijd beladen met zakjes Bruggeman naar de UK, waarschijnlijk dus absoluut onnodig!! Is er kwaliteitsverschil tussen bv. de eigen supermarktmerken/Bruggeman/dr. Oetker/Hovis/Allinson/etc. Bij voorbaat dank! (En als ik het op jullie site had kunnen vinden … excuus)
Hoi Claartje,
Nou, een mens kan van minder in de war raken. Maar je kunt er vanuit gaan dat instant en fast action hetzelfde zijn. Het feit dat je het niet hoeft op te lossen en dat het in zakjes van 7 gram zit is ook een goede houvast dat we het over hetzelfde product hebben. De zakjes die je eerst moet oplossen, daarvan heb je in de regel iets meer nodig en die zakjes zul je denk ik ook veel minder tegenkomen (misschien wel een uitstervend ras). Dan heb je nog de biologische gist, in zakjes, daar zit 9 gram in ipv 7 omdat het substraat waarop gekweekt wordt maakt dat je iets meer massa overhoudt, dus die zakjes van 9 gram zijn ook bedoeld voor een standaard brood op basis van 500 g meel net als de Oetker en Bruggeman zakjes van 7 gram. Deze zijn meer een bewuste keuze voor als je echt een 100% biologisch brood wilt bakken . Wat betreft ‘kwaliteitsverschil’ tussen de Oetkers en Brruggemannen van deze wereld kun je er wel van uitgaan dat dat allemaal zo’n beetje hetzelfde is!
Denk dat je dus prima uit de voeten kunt met een zakje ‘fast action’ in de UK!
Nou he he, dat maakt het “bakkers”-leven weer een stukje makkelijker! Superbedankt voor de uitleg!
Heel graag gedaan,
lots of loaf!
Marieke
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I’ve tried the recipe 2 days ago and the baguette turned out to be a bit small in size considering the amount of flour used. It didn’t expand as much and was no where near the amount of holes as in your photo. I checked the recipe again and did notice a doubtful amount of yeast used. It only calls for 2.7g of instant yeast in total, a mere 0.35% Baker’s percentage. Is this really a correct?
Hello James,
Yes the amounts are certainly correct. We made this exact recipe just a last weekend. It was 24 C in our bakery and we stuck to the exact times given in the recipe and the result of the crumb was very nice. As you describe it, it seems that the right temperature could be the issue. Maybe you can check your dough temperature after mixing to make sure it is about 24 degrees Celsius. You can also read our tips on the subject here http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/a-few-tips-on-dough-temperature/. A few degrees difference in dough temperature can change the duration of the bulk fermentation or the final proofing a lot. (also see the graph in the posting).
Hope this helps and you will give it another try!
Happy baking,
Ed & Marieke
Hello Ed & Marieke,
Thanks for the most helpful response and I did read the tips on dough temperature as well as the amount of yeast used as suggested. Yes, I did make a number of mistakes with timing in the dough preparation and therefore resulting in a poor baguette result. All my fault and I should have read more on the tips and suggestions in your wonderful website beforehand. The experience you guys put together and generously share them with everyone is priceless!
James
Hello James,
Thank you very much for your very kind words. You bake and learn! With every attempt you adapt, you tweak, you make it more and more your own recipe.
Keep on baking and we will keep on sharing too!
Ed & Marieke
Third attempt at making these and the results are fantastic.. Had to modify the recipe a bit. With the flour I’m using the original recipe was a bit like trying to make pancake batter stand up!
Made a sourdough poolish using 380/380 + 30g White sourdough culture and the reduced the water in the final stage from 190 to 160 g. Still need a couple of Scotch scrapers to handle it, but at least it is workable
Beautiful thin crisp crust and a wonderfully bouncy, chewy crumb..
Don’t have a suitable stone floor to bake on so prove and bake in the perforated metal formers.
Once again, thanks for running the site guys.. Always the first place to check when I want to try something new !
Hi Tony,
Thanks for the feed back, wonderful to hear. Tin crisp crust and bouncy crumb, that’s how we like it!
Keep up the good baking!
Ed & Marieke
Hey guys, still remember me? Always loved your website and the baguettes particularly!I have tried the 80% hydration one and am still practicing shaping them better. It’s not easy for me to buy French flour so I’ve been trying to make baguettes using all-purpose flour, more challenging(since the gluten is lower) but fun as well . I’m so grateful for all the tips and help you’ve shared on this website. I just cant wait to try all your recipes!
I dont have a mixer and I’m a die-hard hand-mixing supporter. So I’ve made some adjustment to the process and it works! Hum, I’m not 100% sure until you guys exmaine it for me. I will post some pics on the “Your loaf” section and please have a look. Let me kown what you think. It would mean a lot to me.
Thanks again for everything!
Yang
Hello Yang, hope you are doing great! Thank you for dropping us a line about your baking adventures. We would love to see some pictures and will surely add them to our website!
Happy baking weekend,
Ed & Marieke
As I calculate it, the baker’s percentage for this recipe is 75%. Is that correct?
Hello Joe,
Yes you are correct, it is 75%. Of course, depending on the flour you use and the way it absorbs the water you might want to use a little more or less.
Greetings,
Marieke
Hallo Ed en Marieke,
Gisteren jullie 80% baquettes gemaakt: alle tijden goed plannen en best veel werk maar zeer de moeite waard ze waren weer heerlijk!
Deze week ga ik dit recept eens proberen.
Ik ben benieuwd.
Ook al een aantal keren het 41/5 dag durende
(inclusief de 12 uur die nodig is om t roggedesem te voeden) San Francisco Sourdough Bread van jullie gemaakt± heerlijk en ook zeer de moeite waard!
Wel moet ik mn oven temperatuur aanpassen want de korst gaat wat snel op deze hoge temperatuur (volgens jullie recept) dus probeer iedere keer 10 graden minder omdat t binnenste van t brood wat `plakkerig`is (heel klein beetje maar dus prima te eten) maar niet perfect.
groet van Petra
Hallo Petra,
Je bent weer heerlijk aan het bakken! Nog een suggestie: Misschien zit het verwarmingselement van je oven op vrij korte afstand van de bovenkant van je brood. Heb je al eens geprobeerd om wel op de aangegeven temperatuur te beginnen en dan, als de korst de juiste kleur heeft de oven wat te temperen (zorgen dat hij niet meer ‘aanslaat’). En dan toch proberen de hele baktijd af te maken, zodat het brood wel goed uitgebakken en gaar is.
Happy Baking en alvast een fantastische kersttijd en een goed begin van het nieuwe (bak
) jaar!
Marieke