Crusty French Baguettes 4 Hour Recipe - No Starter Necessary (2024)

FAQs

How do we get the crispy crust on a baguette? ›

Secret three: Preheat the oven for baking with a pan of boiling water. Then once ready to bake, spray the oven with water for extra steam. THIS is what will give you the crunchy crust. An absolute necessity for a classic French Baguette!

One of the secrets of a great baguette is to start with a sponge (a mix of flour, water, and yeast), which gives the yeast time to mature and combine with the other ingredients, creating the mildly sour and nutty flavors and chewy texture.

Set the baguette wrapped in aluminum foil on the counter and try to use it within 1 day. Avoid refrigerating the baguette since the refrigerator will introduce moisture and cause the bread to harden faster. Freeze a wrapped baguette for up to 3 months.

This law dictates that homemade bread must be made at the place of sale and further clarifies what ingredients are permitted in traditional French bread, specifically banning the use of pre-made dough for baguettes sold under the names of Baguette tradition, Baguette à l'ancienne, or Baguette de campagne.

Adding steam to the oven by adding water or ice to a preheated baking tray or pan will help develop that crust. Make sure that your oven temperature is nice and high, we want to cook these quickly to help with that crust, but avoid an over baked crumb.

So heat and steam are a key part of getting that crust of dreams. To help even more, pre-heat a pizza stone in the oven before starting to bake. Place the baking tray or tin directly onto the baking stone. This brings a hot surface into (almost) direct contact with the bread you're baking.

The ordinary or standard baguette is longer, softer, puffier, and cheaper. The traditional baguette has a more pronounced flavor, is crustier and requires more work to make.

Overall, the ideal flour for baguettes should have a moderate protein content, a fine texture, and should be of high quality. While traditional French type 55 flour is the ideal choice, a combination of all-purpose and bread flour can also work well in its place.

This percentage straddles the line between most American all-purpose flours and bread flours, but King Arthur all-purpose flour (the one in the red bag), with its higher-than-normal 11.7% protein, actually makes an excellent baguette flour. If you can't find that one for some reason, use bread flour instead.

If your crust is becoming soft too quickly and not staying crispy you simply need to bake the bread longer. The best way to do this is to lower the temperature of your oven slightly and bake a few more minutes to achieve the same color you would have at the higher temperature.

How do you keep crusty bread crusty overnight? ›

Cloth, being breathable, retains less moisture; the disappointment is that this doesn't translate into a crispy crust, but rather a hard one. So if you want to store bread for a day or so at room temperature, plastic or foil (rather than cloth) is the way to go.

Next, place the wrapped baguette in the oven (not preheated), then set the temperature to 300°F and let is heat for 12 to 15 minutes. Then take the baguette from the oven, remove the foil and heat in the oven for an additional 5 minutes. Voila! Your leftover baguette is as good as fresh!

'Le quignon' is the pointy end of the baguette.

The baguette is one of France's most-loved loaves and is eaten throughout the day. Baguettes can be eaten as early as breakfast time—often toasted, buttered, and dunked in coffee. It's a source of carbohydrates and the fiber necessary to start the day off right! Fruit jam can also be added for an extra treat.

1 – Regular French Baguette = Cheap Bread in France

Hence, the bakers use the cheapest ingredients to keep it low cost. And some people apparently like that taste because “le pain” (the bigger loaf of French bread”) and “la baguette” still sell like… hot cakes (pun intended). Of course, it's a question of taste.

If your crust is becoming soft too quickly and not staying crispy you simply need to bake the bread longer. The best way to do this is to lower the temperature of your oven slightly and bake a few more minutes to achieve the same color you would have at the higher temperature.

for thin, crispy crust you need to develop gluten in your dough, so that it stretches into a really thin film. Then the crust will be thin and crispy. If your dough is not kneaded enough, it stretches only into thick layers of film. They bake into thick and leathery, chewy and hard crust.

Baking quick breads at too high temperatures can cause a hard outside crust. Most quick breads bake in a moderate oven (350°F to 375°F). Double check your recipe to see the temperature they recommend. Oven thermostats can vary over time, requiring adjustments by the baker or calibration by a professional.

Once the bread has finished baking, it will still contain some moisture, however if sufficient moisture hasn't escaped the crumb during the bake time, it will move outwards to the crust as the bread cools. This can cause the crumb to collapse and also soften the crust, weighing it down and further creating collapse.