Everything you need to know to make French baguettes at home (part 1)

Written recipe on our website:

INGREDIENTS (for a standard baguette or chunkier demi baguette (half a baguette)
250 grams white bread flour
175 grams water (see formula in the video for temperature)
5 grams sea salt
3 grams instant dry yeast.

For the cooking of the baguette:
Temperature: 255 degrees Celsius ( about 490 degrees Fahrenheit) with steam.
to create the steam place a container with water at the bottom of your oven and let it heat up until lots of steam is released.

Cooking time: 20 to 25 minutes depending on how well cooked you want the bread to be.

Note about hydration level: The amount of water used for the flour is typically 70 percent of the flour weight. But keep in mind that certain type of flour like a stone ground flour for instance will absorb more water so you may have to use a bit more water then the standard measure for your dough (a ration of 75 percent of the flour weigh should do)

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UTENSILS AND COOKWARE STARTER KIT:

The cast iron pan I always use:
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The Mauviel pan I use plus good copper models:
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Heavy duty cutting board (wood):
Essential utensil set:
Kitchen scales Us Oz and metric grams:
Measuring cups set:

Great starter cookware set (tri-ply clad):
A good nonstick pan:

KNIVES AND KNIFE SETS:
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Great value chef knife:
Forged knife set (mercer culinary):
Fibrox knife set (victorinox):

GREAT CULINARY BOOKS TO HELP IMPROVE YOUR COOKING
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Great books for home cook (from Leiths school foof and wine):
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For people wanting to learn technique like in culinary school:
The professional chef:
Le garde manger:
Paul Bocuse Institute culinary book:
The complete robuchon:
The professional Patry chef:
Baking and pastry, mastering the art:
Beautiful French Pastry recipe book:

CULINARY REFERENCE GUIDES:
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Escoffier culinary guide (in english):
Larousse gastronomique:
Le repertoire de la cuisine (in english):
World atlas of wine:

[snifferdogxsnifferdogx]

My favourite part of all of Stéphane's videos: when he takes a bite of the finished products and makes the nom-nom noises. This boy loves his food.

[FrenchCookingAcademy]

After popular demand I finally made a baguette tutorial😀 it is long but comprehensive adn should give you all teh info you need to make a decent French baguette style bread at home.

[AGabaldoni]

Hello Stephane!

Good job! Bread making is something that needs practice and learning either from a teacher or by trial and error! For your first attempts you did a great job. I have been making bread for many years at home and there are a couple of minor things I would suggest: First, after shaping the baguette, let it rise for at least 30 minutes to an hour (you need to see it increase some 25% to 50% in height). Not letting it rise is preventing the large bubbles to develop and you get the compact bread with the tiny bubbles. What is happening is that when you de-gas and shape the bread, the dough becomes compact and you need a second rise before putting the bread in the oven. The yeast needs to turn some more of the sugars into gas and that takes time.

The other thing, the scoring works better if you do 3 or 4 scores at most, almost paralell to the length of the bread. That allows the bread to expand more evenly. when the scores are almost perpendicular to the length of the bread it will tend to bulge in the center instead of expanding uniformly.

Thanks for the great video, the base temperature calculation is super useful!

[mrjimmienoone]

I have boundless A D M I R A T I O N for French bakers. I know German bread, which is very good in its kind, Italian bread (from Puglia, e.g.) which is delicious, Turkish bread, Chinese 'bing' bread... But nothing compares to the aroma of a fresh French baguette with a quality butter on it and some good cheese or Spanish ham. The smell simply makes me crazy. With a good glass of red wine, it's the best food in the world.

[jameshnall]

I just love watching your show. It’s so real, honest and unpretentious. It’s perfect …you make us….at least me…like you’re in the kitchen with us

[paullewis]

That laugh when you open the cut up. "Hehehehe, it's not too bad!" No. no it's not. Thanks for sharing!

[LtDanDansen]

The bread looks (and sounds !) very good indeed!
I just want to throw in some tips, which in my opinion work very good.
- Do the autolyse without the salt (helps to develop the gluten strength faster).
- Add yeast and salt together afterwards (helps to calm down the yeast growth).
- Let the dough rise for 3-4 hours room temperature before transferring to the fridge for overnight fermentation, (best is 24 hours total).
- After forming baguette shape, let it rise covered at least for 45min to 1 hour.
- Remove water tray from oven and let the steam out after 10 min. of baking.
- Open the oven door a tiny bit (put a wooden spoon or similar between oven and door) for the last 5min of baking.
- Best thing is to add some sourdough starter (which I know you dont wanted to cover in your video) which adds extra flavour and helps with the bigger bubbles too...

Great Job anyway!

[IngridAlcazarOficial]

My sister is making bread and I know this recipe is going to blow her mind up! Merci!

[manuscriptsdontburn]

Thank you, Stephane. I've watched many English speaking videos about making baguettes but none mentioned the equation for the water temperature. I saw it on two French speaking channels Boulangerie Pas a Pas and l'Ecole Internationale de Boulangerie but now that you explained it, everything makes sense.

[jeanie]

I’ve just started making bread, trying to replicate the bread offered at my local (French) favourite restaurant.I’m excited about this.

[jg]

That baguette is a gift from God. The same may be said for your cooking.

[Mrronald]

Hi Stephane, overnight I tried your recipe, following your perfect instructions 100% - including all the hilarious resting times (I’m an impatient Dutchman).The result was just fantastic, confirmed by a true semi-french audience! It tasted completely authentic even though I used leftover plain supermarket flour (package was open >6 months..). It was airy, tasty, crunchy, all the good things you’d expect. Start to finish took 17 hours and eating the result took 20 minutes 😎
Will definitely repeat, with fresh flour!

[nettymeikle]

My husband bought a german dometic over with the ability to inject steam specifically for bread making and it works a treat. The bakers he learned at had a rule that was, to be consistent ingrediants by weight, water, egg, oil..etc because you cannot measure accurately volume but you can be to the gram with weight. What you cannot match is the facility, they had all ingrediants, proving racks, working room etc at fixed temperatures.. at home you just have to work with what you've got

[cynthiacarter]

Thank you for this very informative tutorial. I've been baking my own baguettes at home and I'm still learning. I'm glad I found you. Merci

[jenningsjohnson]

Such a perfect for both laymen and Chefs everywhere.

[puly]

"I have to say.." *crunch* *crunch*
"hmmm" *chew*
"wow" *eats some more*
I was salivating. That sound was very like the real thing and far better than what they sell as 'baguette' here in SEA. I miss proper baguettes. I need to give this a try.

[peensezpibble]

Loved your laughter when you cut it open. You have SUCCESS!! <3

[femalism]

WOW! Good job, I can almost smell and taste it - my home baguettes (with cheats - I use the middle rack to bake the baguette, with preheated pizza stones on the bottom and top racks, and a cookie sheet filled with water on the floor of the oven) work out quite well despite where I live (rainforest temperatures, humidity etc...). So far my best results come from using ordinary store bought ingredients and baking the baguettes in the outside clay pizza oven.

[johnreynolds]

Impressive outcome for a home kitchen.

[jasonburnett]

Prepped the dough last night and was up at 4 am to get it in the oven this morning! Not bad for my first attempt, I'm already looking forward to my next attempt!