Easy Crusty French Baguette
This Easy Crusty French Baguette is simple enough to be made at home but tastes just like you bought it at your local bakery!
Make some for our Easy Tomato Bruschetta!
Hellloooo fellow quaran-carb friends! Let me introduce you to our newest carb love, this Easy Crusty French Baguette!
I don’t know about you guys, but we are carb-loading hard during self-isolation. We’ve been baking a LOT of bread. And one of my deepest loves? A crusty French baguette, which we now can make at home.
Recipe Video
Ingredients Needed:
- Flour – The best flour for this is bread flour, but an all-purpose will work great, too.
- Yeast – We use active dry yeast, but you can also use instant yeast, it just won’t need the activation.
- Kosher salt – You can also use table salt, but just see the recipe notes.
- Water –
Equipment Needed:
A Kitchen Scale is really necessary if you want to do a lot of baking to get the right ingredients We love this one!
Also, to help with the Maillard reaction, AKA the gorgeous browning effect, you’ll need a little spray bottle with water. Nothing fancy, just something like this one.
A Lame Bread Slashing Tool – this is basically a super sharp bread razor to make those lovely bread slashes. You can also use a super sharp knife, but isn’t it always more fun to have a special tool?
How to Make:
This bread is an easy one that doesn’t require a starter or a lot of prep time, which is why it’s exactly the kind of bread that stays in our repertoire. It’s really very easy:
- Dissolve and activate the yeast – If using instant yeast, no need to activate it.
- Mix flour – not a lot of kneading is required, which is one of the best parts of this recipe!
- Let rest/rise – let it do its thannng
- Shape into loaves (and rise again)
- Bake!
Bake the next day: You could also after kneading it, place it in the fridge to bake the next day. Just add it to an oiled bowl, cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and place it in the fridge. The next day, punch it down, let it rest for about 10 minutes, and then shape it.
I decided to just make two baguettes, but you could definitely make four. Personally, I like ’em long, but it will make it difficult if you don’t have a sheet pan big enough, so really, this recipe will make up to 4 crusty loaves.
I seriously love this baguette. It is the perfect addition for a wine and cheese afternoon with girlfriends and any cheese board or charcuterie. We love a good baguette.
Favorite Recipes to Serve With:
- Sun-dried Tomato Hummus
- Fresh, Easy, Pico de Gallo From Scratch
- Avocado Corn Salsa
- Whipped Feta and Arugula Crostini
- Candy Cane Charcuterie Board
- Curry Chicken Salad
Or, hey at this time in life if you just want to sit down with an Easy Crusty French Baguette and some butter with a glass of wine and binge something on Netflix… get it. I’m with you, 100%. Definitely did that with one of these bad boys.
Our Other Favorite Bread Recipes
- Cheesy Pesto Pull-Apart Rolls
- Easy White Sandwich Bread
- Homemade Hawaiian Rolls
- No Knead Rosemary Garlic Bread
- Easy Dinner Rolls From Scratch
- Vietnamese Baguette
So my quarantine baker buds, bake on! As always, if you do please let me know!! I love to hear about it on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
Easy Crusty French Baguette
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup warm water 50 g or 1.75 fl oz
- 2 1/4 teaspoons active yeast 1 packet, 10 g
- 3 2/3 cups bread flour 1 lb or 454 g
- 1 3/4 teaspoons kosher salt 9 g
- 1 1/4 cups water 10 fl oz or 296 g
Instructions
- Add the 1/4 c warm water to a bowl and dissolve the yeast and let activate until bubbly, about 10 minutes. If using instant yeast, no need to wait the 10 minutes.
- In a medium sized bowl, measure out flour, add salt and stir and then add it to the yeast.
- Add water (a little at a time) to the dough and mix into a a shaggy dough. The dough shouldn't be sticky, so you may not need to add all of the water.
- Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, add dough to a lightly floured surface and gently knead a couple of times before putting in a lightly oiled bowl to rise. Cover with plastic again and let rise for 1 hr.
- Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.
- Lightly flour surface. Divide dough in half. And then halve again to get 4 equal portions that are about 10 inches long. Shape doughs into long loaves with pointed ends. Cover with oiled plastic wrap or a dry linen towel and let rise again until almost doubled – about 30-45 minutes.
- Once doubled, gently transfer loaves to parchment lined baking sheets. Sprinkle with flour and then slash with a bread lame slashing tool.
- Spray loaves with water and then add to oven. Set time for 30 minutes. Let bake for 5 minutes (25 min mark) and then spray with water. After another 7 minutes (at 18 min mark) spray again with water.
- Bake for a total of 30 minutes or until baguettes are brown and crusty. Remove from oven and let cool. When the bottom is tapped, they should sound hallow.
- Enjoy!
I made these today for the first time and they came out pretty good even though I had the oven set on 400 instead of 450 for the first half of the bake. Oops, that’s what I get for looking at the dinner recipe I was also prepping at the same time that called for 400. Not as brown as I’d have liked them on top, but still very tasty.
Next time I will pay better attention to the oven temp. lol
We’ve all been there, Jane! So glad you enjoyed it them all the same!
Can’t recall if I already reviewed but just made a second time. Love this recipe. I don’t have a spray bottle so I used a soaked paper towel to lightly “mop” the baguettes each time. Worked fine!
Oh I love to hear it, Pam!! Thanks so much for sharing!
Just made this for dinner, I opted to make 2 larger loaves out of it. Had to pull it out 4 minutes early because the loaves were starting to become a little burnt on the bottom so just a fair warning if you use a gas oven I would keep an eye on it the last few minutes. That being said it was absolutely delicious and both loaves were completely devoured by my family in less than 5 minutes. Will definitely make again.
Wonderful to hear, Gypsy! And great tip about the gas oven! I’m so glad you all enjoyed them, thanks so much for taking the time to leave a review!
Follow the instructions make a great bread. The recipe should be at the top of the page rather than the bottom.
Great baguette recipe! I had 4 medium sized baguettes and let it rest for half the time with a “time saver” instant yeast.
My dough is currently on its first rise right now, cant wait to have these with dinner tonight! I do have one question, why would I divide the dough into 4 pieces if I’m making 2 loaves?
Yay! Enjoy! Only divide into 4 pieces if you want 4 baguettes, but if you want 2 extra long ones, divide into just 2 pieces. 🙂
Easiest bread Ive made with a surprisingly wonderful flavor! Crunchy but thin crust, my kids said it tastes almost like sourdough it was that good. Went fantastic with soup for dinner. Only advice for new bakers is to add in how to roll the baguette as some may not know how in the steps. Cant wait to make these again! I got two large baguettes out of the recipe.
So glad you enjoyed it, and thanks so much for those notes about rolling – will add them! Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a review!
Delicious! I live at 8500 ft in Colorado, so hard to make any bread. They turned out a little flat but we’re still wonderful tasting. Thank you for this recipe.
Oh that’s so great to hear! Thanks so much for sharing!
Hi! Do I need to use bread flour?
Hi Tatiana, you can use all purpose flour, too!
Hi, if i leave the kneaded dough in the fridge then bake the next day, do i still need to let it rise again after shaping? or after pulling it out from the fridge, rest for 10mins, shape and bake directly? thanks
Hi! You definitely want to let it rise again after shaping. The most important thing is that the dough comes back up to room temp before baking. Enjoy!!
I want to try making your bread today. But I stopped because I got hung up on what kind of oil to use. When you say well oiled bowl…what kind of oil do you mean?
Hi Em! Olive oil is what we use, or you could use butter, or a butter baking spray will work. Enjoy!
Easy as advertised. I suggest letting the dough sit overnight in the refrigerator…much better results. Bigger air pockets, and the chewy mouth feel is spot on.
I measure in cups, versus weights for this recipe. And, I measured the cups versus weights to compare the two. For these baguettes the result was neglible.
I bake often, and often weigh my ingredients, so these qualify as very easy. I use a razor blade knife dedicated for kitchen use.
I am mixing the dough right now, the water to mix is it cool water or warm
Hi Rose! No need for it to be warm or extra cold. Cool is ok!