French Baguette Recipe | Bread Recipes | PBS Food (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret of best 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.

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.

The French bread law

The law states that traditional baguettes have to be made on the premises they're sold and can only be made with four ingredients: wheat flour, water, salt and yeast. They can't be frozen at any stage or contain additives or preservatives, which also means they go stale within 24 hours.

It should be long and skinny (55 to 60cm would be traditional but is uncommon in these days of shorter baguettes) with a crisp crust, nice brown exterior color, and a moist, cream-colored crumb with an irregular structure. It's best eaten within a few hours once it's out of the oven.

Here are key differences: 1. **Ingredients**: Both are made with similar basic ingredients, but French regulations stipulate that traditional baguettes — labeled as "baguette de tradition française" — must be made without any additives or preservatives, while other French breads might include additional ingredients. 2.

Like the focaccia, the baguettes made with bread flour had a much more open crumb and springier, chewier texture, and the scores (the marks on the top of the loaf) opened up more. The dough made with bread flour was much easier to shape; meanwhile, the dough made with all-purpose flour was stickier and slacker.

Type 55 is the standard, hard-wheat white flour for baking, including puff pastries (“pâte feuilletée”). Type 45 is often called pastry flour, and is generally from a softer wheat (this corresponds to what older French texts call “farine de gruau”).

T45 : This is a white flour generally used for pastries, cakes, etc., but also for pizza dough. T55 : This is a white flour used for "white" or "ordinary" bread, pastry doughs and pizzas. T65 : This is also a white flour used to make farmhouse bread, special breads (traditional) and pizza dough.

There are two things which make French bread so amazing. 1) Flavor: Mixing the yeast with a little flour and water ahead of time gives a big flavor boost. This is called a poolish or preferment. Slow and cool yeast development is the secret to good flavor.

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

What is a Louisiana baguette? ›

This thin-crusted variety of French Bread—more commonly known as the Baguette, Po' Boy Loaf or Sunday Cap Bread—is fundamental to the New Orleans gastronomy. Each version of the French bread is slightly different. The baguette is the traditional 18-inch loaf that is served in many New Orleans restaurants.

Of all the food in the country, the French baguette is perhaps the one that most unites France and its culture. Okay, so perhaps that's overstating it a tiny bit. But the French — every man, woman and child of them — do manage to eat an entire baguette every day. To many French a meal without a baguette is not a meal.

You can eat a baguette every day and be healthy, but the key is portion size and what you're eating with your baguette. It's important to note that baguettes are particularly high in carbohydrates and sodium, so you should choose your portion size based on your diet and overall health goals.

Baking a great baguette isn't difficult, but to get the best possible result then it takes a little planning. I use two extended fermentation periods/proofs in this process. Both in my opinion are crucial for obtaining the best result. While these baguettes take a little planning, the handling time is very little.

Besides the obvious fact that French bread is typically longer and thinner than regular loaves, it tends to be less sweet and has a crispier crust. French bread is usually also made with very simple ingredients instead of sandwich bread, which can have many different additives.

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.

Au Levain des Pyrénées boulangerie and baker Tharshan Selvarajah, 37, took first place in the 30th annual “Grand Prix de la Baguette de Traditional Francaise de la Ville De Paris,” the most revered baguette competition.

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!

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.