A ficelle is an elegant and slender version of a baguette. Ficelle means string in French.
Klik hier voor de Nederlandse versie
This slimmer version of the French baguette came about after some experimenting with different types of preferment and flour. The result is a very tasty, crunchy, somewhat chewy and you could even say cute bread with a very interesting taste and texture. It is a great place to start if you have not made baguettes before. It will give you good practice, with shaping and scoring, which we kept slightly easier for this recipe.
In this recipe we use a combination of bread flour and semolina / durum flour which adds to the chew and crust and different flavor profile. You can make these using only bread flour of course, but if you can get semolina, just give it a try.
This hybrid version, with yeast in the final dough, and a sourdough preferment with a same day fermenting period, gives a complexity of taste without adding too much sourness, leaving room for the sweetness we like in these types of bread. It is a great recipe for you to experiment with and make your own.
Because of the limitations of our stone oven, we can only make these ficelles 48 cm long. If you have more room, you can of course make them even longer and thinner.
Before you start
For this recipe we are going to make a preferment named a poolish. A poolish is a type of preferment made with an equal weight of water and flour and a small amount of sourdough starter culture or yeast and NO salt. Making a poolish helps bring more taste and strength to your bread.
* We use a sourdough culture made with 100% organic whole rye flour. A sourdough culture based on rye flour is easier to maintain, does not go into a slurry when you forget about it, is easier to stir because it has almost no gluten and smells very nice, a bit like fruit. It is also very forgiving in the amount you feed it. Normally we only feed it once a week, after our weekend baking we give it a few table spoons of water and rye flour, stir, ready!
Step 1
Making the sourdough poolish
In a bowl stir together the flour and water at room temperature with the sourdough culture. Do not use cold water as this will slow down the sourdough development. Mix it well until you have a homogeneous slurry that looks like very thick batter. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and let the prefermenting begin. After 6 hours at room temperature it should be bubbly, light and ready for use. For a one day recipe we make the poolish in the morning and begin our bread making in the afternoon.
| Ingredients for the sourdough poolish | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 200 | g | bread flour | ||
| 200 | g | water (room temperature) | ||
| 30 | g | active sourdough culture* | ||
| Ingredients for the final dough | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Makes 4 ficelles | ||||
| the poolish from step 1 | ||||
| 200 | g | bread flour | ||
| 100 | g | semola / durum wheat flour | ||
| 110 | g | water | ||
| 8 | g | (sea) salt | ||
| 5 | g | instant yeast | ||
Step 2
Making the ficelle dough
In the bowl of your standing mixer, combine the poolish with the other ingredients and knead for 7 minutes on a low speed. If you knead by hand it takes about 15 minutes, depending on your technique. Cover and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
Now turn out the dough onto your work surface and stretch and fold, doing one full set letter fold (one set = right over left, left over right, bottom over top, top over bottom). You can also do this stretching and folding in your bowl. If you are not familiar with it, check out how this technique works in this video first.
After this stretching and folding to help develop the dough, again leave the dough to rest for 30 minutes.
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.)
Shaping the ficelles
For these slim baguettes we use a simple but effective shaping technique.
Turn the dough out onto your work surface and divide it into four equal parts. Shape each part into a rectangle (around 20 x 14 cm / 7.8 x 5.5 inches), cover with floured clingfilm and leave to rest for 10 minutes, so the gluten can relax.
Now shape each rectangle as shown in the pictures above. Fold both sides to the middle, fold again and carefully close the seem of the dough with the heel of your hand.
Make a rolling motion with your hands starting from the center and moving to the sides, with a soft and even touch. This way you elongate the ficelle. Finish the ficelle with some nice pointy ends on both sides.
Cover with clingfilm and leave to rest for 20 minutes in a couche or on your bench, making sure you use enough flour or semolina so they will not stick to the surface. If you are not baking them on a stone you can also do this final proofing on the baking sheet you will use in your oven of course.
Transfer the ficelles to a breadboard or peel. Score the ficelles with a lame / scoring knife. In the pictures you can see that we did one big scoring motion along the length of the ficelle, which works very well for this small surface and gives a nice end result. As a variation you can sprinkle some ficelles with (black) sesame or nigella seeds.
Slide the ficelles in the (to 240ºC / 465ºF) preheated oven and bake for 20 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. 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.
Best eaten while fresh of course. You can also store the ficelles in the freezer and give them a quick pick me up in the oven or a big toaster.
Ficelle time table
This table gives you an indication of the total duration for this recipe.
Step 1
00:00 Make poolish
+6 hours prefermenting
Step 2
06:00 Knead ingredients 7 minutes
+30 minute rest
06:37 – Stretch & fold
+30 minute rest
07:07 – Divide and preshape (3 minutes)
+10 minute rest
07:20 – Shape the ficelles (5 minutes)
+20 minutes final proofing
07:45 – into the oven
Baking time 20 minutes
08:05 – take out and leave to cool
If you like to move on to the bigger baguettes check out our French baguette and 80% hydration baguette recipes!
Bruce says
I will definitely be making these soon because years ago while in Boston, I walked into an Au Bon Pain! and walked out with a goat cheese, basil and sun-dried tomato sandwich on ficelle. That combined with their luscious wild mushroom soup was perfection on a cold day.
Thank you for the recipe!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Bruce,
We love your reminiscing about this wonderful time in Boston. Hope our recipe will bring it all back and maybe it will be even more memorable because you made it yourself!
Let us know how it goes en enjoy the process 🙂
Netweaver says
Fantastic post and recipe! The crisp crust, awesome tender interior, and full flavour. Your direction allowed me to easily adapt to less than active starter and make a half batch. Used a baguette baking tray which worked very well.
Loving making different breads since retiring.
Just wanted to share my thanks and gratitude.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Netweaver,
We both want to thank you for your cordial feedback on the ficelle recipe. We love the hybrid versions of bread recipes. You get maximum taste and a wonderful crust and the yeast helps with les enthousiast starter too.
Enjoy your retirement baking. Is there a better hobby with such benefits we ask?!
Greetings from Holland,
Ed & Marieke
camilla keeling says
So delicious! Great recipe, clear and helpful. I love your site!
Linda says
I made the ficelle with sourdough. The taste is wonderful your instructions are perfect. However I did something wrong. My ficelle has no big holes in it and there is no hard crust. Like I said the taste is great just wondering what I am doing wrong.
marco jerrentrup says
fabulous recipe, really clear to follow. the timing element at the end is a super.
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Marco, great the recipe worked out well for you too!
Rien Wiersma says
Didn’t quite get a great result but still chewy and delicious. I thought the dough wasn’t slack enough for a baguette style. Love your website. Cheers from Australia
Rien
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Rien,
Could be your flour could use some more hydration, so you can go from 62 to 65 or 67% hydration for instance. There can be such a difference between flours, even flour of the same brand in different bags.
So hope you will give it another go!
Leslie Valmadre says
Kitchen Aid advise in their literature that 2 minutes of kneading on speed 2 is equivalent to 12-14 minutes of hand kneading. I see however that some of your recipes call for 7 minutes of kneading. In my use of my KA I find that extended kneading of about 6 minutes results in the dough creeping up and overflowing the dough hook a result according to KA of overkneading. I would love to hear your experienced comment on this. I am now of the opinion that 2 mins of kneading then a couple of extra fold and turns may be a better option. Hope you have a chance to advise.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Leslie,
Thank you for sharing this information. It very much depends on the recipe but our contribution to this subject in general is this:
The different proteins in your flour are responsible for the development of gluten during mixing. In general longer mixing means a more developed gluten structure. It is possible to over-mix dough at which point the gluten chains can break, but from our experience home bakers are more prone to under-mix their dough, not building up enough strength and elasticity. It is very hard to over-mix a dough without professional spiral mixers. Experience and handling lots of dough will best teach you how your dough should look and feel at any stage of a recipe.
We also know from experience that 7 minutes of mixing (at speed 2) with a KA will not result in over-kneading. We think the dough creeping may have other causes, like the consistency and amount of the dough. But you are very right, if the creeping up is a problem, shorter kneading and extra folds would be a great alternative to develop the dough.
For more of our tips and explanations on dough development check out:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…gh-mixing/
and about gluten:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ut-gluten/
Enjoy your baking!
Kimberly says
Thank you for this recipe. Made these and they are the best I’ve ever made!
Weekend Bakers says
Thanks Kimberly, for your wonderful feedback.
The ficelles do so well in the freezer too, even after many, many weeks with just a minute in the toaster after defrosting, they still taste very good.
Sarah says
Hi Weekend Bakery!
I am very excited about this recipe! Do you think a slightly longer overnight preferment would be ok? I would like to bake Saturday morning for lunch.
Thank you!
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Sarah,
Yes that is possible of course. Make it late in the evening and place in a cool room temperature spot. Hope it will be great!
Sarah says
Thank you Weekend Bakery! 👍🏻👍🏻
Serena says
You’re ficelle tastes really nice! Please do not bother to reply if you cannot afford to.
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Serena,
Always happy to answer any genuine, enthusiastic or problem solving comment or questions from baker friends if possible!
Dee says
Omg! Thank you for this recipe. It was perfect! I made 3 instead of 4. Used all bread flour because that’s all I had. I will try the semolina and make 4 next time. Thanks again for sharing this!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Dee,
Thanks for trying the recipe and wonderful it turned out so well. Hope you like the semolina version too, but using all bread flour is no problem of course as you have already noticed.
Enjoy your baking!
Annie says
Hey! What a great blog. I’m going to try to make the ficelles his weekend. Just a quick question about the sourdough starter, as I have one in my fridge. Does it need to first be fed and let rest before using, or can I just bring the starter to room temp and use as is?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Annie,
You probably already made a decision. It never hurts to refresh it, but if it was refreshed recently (less than a week ago) we use it without refreshing too and also straight from the fridge (because it is a relatively small quantity). With the added water you can make sure the total dough has the right temperature of around 24 to 25 Celsius.
Hope it worked out well!
Annie says
Thank you! I did make the ficelles and they did turn out beautifully. I refreshed the starter as it was a while since I used it. Perfect little loaves.
So happy I found this site.
Thanks again!
Weekend Bakers says
Great to read about your result Annie and thank you for your kind comment.
Wishing you many happy baking hours from Holland!
Marieke & Ed
Gerry says
Thank you, this recipe worked beautifully. I am so pleased to find a site that uses a rye starter, it is the only one I keep.
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Gerry for your kind feedback and trying our recipe. Same here, we almost only use the rye sourdough, and have been doing so for many years.
Enjoy the baking!
Marieke & Ed
Nick Kelly says
This is a great recipe, and the end results delicious. The semolina gives it a nice taste and the method is easy to follow and seems to be very reliable – done it twice now and beautiful results both times.
Thank you for sharing.
Weekend Bakers says
Love reading your feedback Nick. Glad it worked so well for you too.
Happy baking and eating and sharing this festive season!
Marieke & Ed
Weekend Bakers
Rebecca says
Hello Ed and Marieke,
I made these last weekend, my first attempt at anything baguette-like. Despite a couple of minor mishaps (including a sourdough starter that was not as active as I’d thought), they came out great! I only made half the recipe, and had two lovely ficelles that were quickly devoured.
Will definitely make them again – and maybe a whole recipe, since these disappeared so fast…. Thanks for another fantastic recipe, with clear instructions.
Rebecca
Ps. Because I’m a whole grains girl, I subbed whole wheat flour for half of the white flour in the dough, and upped the water by a few grams. Since that went well, I might push my luck and also use half whole wheat in the poolish the next time….
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you so much Rebecca for your enthusiastic comment. Great to read the substitution with the whole wheat turned out so well. Using even more whole wheat will change the ficelle some more of course, but with your whole grains experience and very good small adjustments we are sure it will go well.
Wishing you lots of happy baking moments,
Marieke & Ed
Rebecca says
Been meaning to get back to you. I’ve since made the recipe a couple more times (and shared it with several bread baking friends). The last time I used all whole wheat in the poolish, then white & durum flours in the dough with a few grams more water. It does obviously change the “personality” of the ficelle, but they rose well and were delicious. After tasting my ficelle, friends of mine asked if they can take bread-baking lessons from me. 😉
Thanks again,
Rebecca
Weekend Bakers says
Hi again Rebecca,
Thanks for sharing this with us. Excellent! Who knows, you will pass on the skills to your friends…
Enjoy the baking and sharing this Holiday season.
Greetings,
Marieke & Ed
Jon Trew says
In my local Indian grocers shop I can buy fine or coarse ground semolina. Which should I use for this recipe? Thanks Jon
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Jon,
You can actually use both if you want. For this recipe we prefer the fine variety, but for a coating on top of the ficelles you could use the coarser variety which adds a nice texture and crunch like you can see here on the fougasse: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…-fougasse/
Happy baking and sharing!
Marieke
Jonathan says
Hi,
I am going to try these on the weekend. I prefer the idea of using just sourdough and no active yeast, will this work? Can you recommend how much extra starter to use to compensate?
Thanks
Jonathan
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Jonathan,
Yes you can make a 100% sourdough version. You do not need to adjust the amount of culture, but you do need to lengthen the resting and proofing times. We cannot tell you the exact times for this because every culture behaves different but a good place to start would be 50 minutes for the resting periods and at least 1 hour for the final proofing. Keep in mind that the consistency of crumb and crust (thicker) will be different. Personally we would keep the ficelles a bit thicker and shorter because of the crust crumb ratio (otherwise rather thick crust and less crumb when long and small).
Happy baking!
Ed & Marieke
Annabel says
I made this recipe last night, and it was fabulous! I’m so happy to have a new recipe to use with my sourdough starter (which is fed religiously but all-too-seldom used).
My old stone has become too disgusting to use, so I baked these on a parchment-lined baking sheet 12″ x 18″. Four ficelles was crowding it a bit–the sides of the ficelles were slightly pale. Also, my shaping was not perfect (the pointy ends were not very pointy at all after final proof). However, the crust and crumb were so very delicious. All four disappeared within a day. I may adjust quantities downwards to make three, which should give enough room for all sides to brown well.
This will definitely go into my “preferred recipe” collection!
Off to buy more semolina…
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Annabel,
Such a lovely comment to read this Saturday morning! Just makes you even more enthusiastic and eager to get baking yourself. With your adjustments the next bake will be even better we are sure. Excellent!
Enjoy the baking weekend,
Marieke & Ed
breadbites says
Perfect recipe and incredible discription. Thanks a lot 🙂
Weekend Bakers says
Thanks Breadbites and enjoy the baking!
Felicia Tang says
I would love to give this recipe a try but can you advise on replacing the 5g of instant yeast in the final dough? I wish to make pure sourdough ficelles.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Felicia,
This is the challenge with each recipe, you cannot change one thing and leave the rest the same and expect a good result. If you want to make a sourdough version without adding any yeast, you need to change the proofing times, they will be much longer, but we cannot say exactly how much longer based on experience with this one. You need to at least double the times given, probably longer. You do not add any extra sourdough culture to the final dough, you just leave out the yeast. So, if you want, give it a try, it may need a few turns to get it right. Also, looking at the crust / crumb ratio of this very long and thin bread, with only sourdough the crust will get even thicker, the crumb will be different and the taste too of course. That is why we choose this hybrid version for this recipe, we like the taste and texture best this way. You could also play with the shape of the bread of course.
Mary says
Wow! This recipe is amazing! Thank you so much. I tried it today and it came out beautifully. I am newish to sourdough and this is my first go at baguettes. One question, can they be put in the fridge overnight after final shaping?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Mary,
Thank you very much for your wonderful feedback. Yes, it is possible to put the shaped ficelles in the fridge. Make sure you do cover them well, so they will not dry out. Also depending on the temperature of your fridge you will have to judge how long they can stay in for the best result and if they need a bit more proofing before or after this ‘retarding process’.
Happy baking in the New Year!
Anita says
i am excited to find this recipe and going to try it after i find the semola/durum wheat flour. I don’t like sourdough so very happy to see the tip. Just wondering if anyone has added shredded cheese and mixed it in? i know, you’re probably doing the eek what are you thinking! But just asking the question. I see there is also the french baguette listed so will check that recipe too. I love making fresh bread and don’t make it as often as i like. But have not tried making baquettes yet and now that winter is here i will spend more time at home so great time to try. Thanks so much.
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Anita,
No problem adding things to the recipe, but we always advice making a recipe as is at least a few times to get a feel for the dough and process!
Ömer Seyfi Salur says
To me adding cheese will be good but, will it go with flour, it might chance the reactions by its melring. I do not know but to it aroused like that.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello mr. Salur,
Adding cheese will be no problem. Start with a small amount is our advice, and see how out works out (also with the salt content, because cheese has salt in to too).
Be careful if you bake on a tray or stone to cover it with baking paper,so the cheese will not burn on the tray or stone.
Happy baking!
Eila says
Hi, very excited to be baking these today- my poolish is sitting now.
Could you leave the poolish over night to bake your ficelles first thing in the morning or is that too long for it?
Thank you
Eila
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Eila,
Maybe a bit (too) late but, yes you can do that, but you often have to make adjustments because of the longer fermenting period (it also depends on the activity of your sourdough). If you sourdough is very active you can use a bit less in the poolish or you can use a very cool space or the fridge to slow the process down.
Rebecca DeGroff says
These are the most fun to make and absolutely the most delicious treat to eat! We have them with fresh mozzarella rolled with sun dried tomatoes and fresh basil or with good old butter! Love them. Make and sell them at a small farmers market with my other breads and they are by far the best seller. Thank you for this delightful recipe!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Rebecca,
Thank you so very much for sharing this wonderful success story with us. So great to hear, we can almost see you standing there with all your lovely breads. The combination with mozzarella or butter, cannot go wrong with that and also a firm favorite over here, you will not be surprised.
Wishing you lots of loaves and ficelles and the best of times baking and selling at the farmers market!
Marieke & Ed
Barbara says
I will be baking these today, I was wondering how long your ficelle turn out as a final finish? I will be baking them in a cast iron roasting dish covered with a cast iron griddle. I have been baking rye sourdough bread in a dutch oven and it turns out great. Hope they will be as crispy as yours look. If not I will do your open baking method but I only have a gas oven not a perfect for bread stone oven.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Barbara,
We do not really understand exactly what you mean with your first question (turn out as a final finish)?
We think the roasting dish will give great result with this recipe too. The normal gas oven should also give good result, provided you can create some steam and check your oven will have the right temperature. For this we have some good tips: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…your-oven/
Hope it works (worked) out great!
Andy says
I tried this today using the instant yeast option – It came out looking and tasting great.
The videos are really helpful and site fantastic – Thanks
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Andy,
Thank you for trying and liking it too!
tasteaholics says
Great looking bread! I’ve been itching to bake a new type of bread and I might try this. Thanks for sharing the recipe
Fadel Burshan says
tomorrow will make it and tell you the result. Thank you
Weekend Bakers says
Hope it turned out great Fadel!
Lynda Switzer says
Awesome recipe. Thanks for sharing!
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you for liking it Lynda, hope you will give it a try!
Dvorah says
Great recipe , I prepared the dough with the sourdough recipe It was easy and fun to do I bake them in a perforated pan for Baguette with a pan full of boiling water at the bottom of the oven ( I set the pan with the water from the beginning and increase the temperature a little bit They came out perfect this recipe gives the perfects amounts and times
Thank you
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Dvorah for your enthusiastic feedback. Good to hear your method with the pan also works well.
Happy baking!
Jane says
Thanks for all your tips !! 🙂
Weekend Bakers says
Thanks Jane, your welcome!