Making French Baguette at home – the easiest bread recipe EVER

I love French bread. I have loved this bread ever since I was a little girl, way before I ever stepped foot in France. My mum always bought it from Ikeja, anytime she was doing business in the area. When we finally moved to Ikeja, it was one of the consolation points, because we loved our old house so much. Anybody who grew up in an around Opebi Road, Allen Avenue, Toyin, GRA, Ogba, will definitely remember Big Treat bread. The queue for that bread was insane. People queued for hours, and the breads will be off the shelves faster than the bakers could drop them. Whenever you are in the area, the aroma wafting from Big Treat supermarkets was unmistakable. Their bakery was famous in the area. People who didn’t live in Ikeja came from far and wide just to buy their bread. If you go there shortly after Christland School had closed for the day, you will queue till your legs hurt. We who lived in the area, used to be so irritated about it. It wasn’t cheap either, but it disappeared very fast in people’s homes. Their cakes too were an absolute delight. Take any child to Big Treat, and be prepared to leave your wallet open. They were the first confectionery to open on Allen Avenue before TFC moved in, followed by Sweet Sensation. I hope this is bringing back memories for some of you. Shout out to all Ikeja babies whether you lived or schooled there. I lived off Allen Avenue, a walking distance from Big Treat Confectionaries. My parents still live there.

Right beside Big Treat it is Osata supermarket and they sell the most beautiful Vienna sausages and every other yummy goodness you can think of. Planta margarine, Walls ice cream, bacon, hot dogs, smoked chicken, luxury chocolates, frozen fish, seafood, you name it Osata stocked it. Most of our breakfast items came from both stores. Gosh, those were the days. Once Mummy calls the landline to find out if there is still bread at home and we say no, we drop whatever we are doing and just sit by the door like puppies waiting for mama to come home. This was one of the times Mummy did not need to honk her horn more than once. We all came flying outside screaming Mummy, Mummy, falling over ourselves to get her bags, and rushing back inside.

As always she will raise her voice loudly enough to say, it is meant only for breakfast, I am going to make dinner shortly. We will then turn back to her with our sad puppy eyes saying please, please, please mummy, just a little. Then she will smile with the words okay, okay, I bought an extra loaf, just because I know you hungry mongrels will have at it before breakfast. It was a dance that repeated itself so often, it always elicited the same reaction, but sometimes she had to put her foot down because Big Treat only allowed each person to buy 2 maximum just so it could go round. We were not happy bunnies on those days. Lol.

Gosh, lots and lots of memories surrounding bread. I ate good bread so much, no wonder it is one my favourite things to eat. On the back of being succesful with making bread twice (recipe HERE and HERE), I decided to take on one of the most iconic parts of my childhood. The French Baguette. I looked at a couple of recipes and groaned in misery, until I found this video from Food Wishes with one of the funniest voice overs ever. Chef John is such a hoot. It was such a blessing that the recipe is sooooooooooooooo easy, it is ridiculous. You don’t need any gadget, no prior experience with making bread. If there was no video, I wouldn’t have believed it, but alas he wasn’t telling lies. This is the Real McCoy and I am happy to bring this to you. This truly is a wish come true for me.

This recipe makes 4 small baguette or 2 Large ones. Please get your weighing scale out for this, it is highly important.

You will need

1/4 tsp dry active yeast

1 1/2 cups water (325 grams)

1 3/4 tsp salt

500grams All Purpose Flour

That’s all you need. Yeah, you read that correctly. That is ALL you need. What I love about this recipe is that it breaks down all the rules you know about baking bread.

it is a no knead recipe, how cool is that?
you don’t need to “wake up the yeast”, which gave me high BP the very first time I baked bread, phew.
you don’t even need warm water, room temperature water is okay.
you don’t even need bread flour. All purpose is okay.
you don’t need an egg wash too, just water wash.

WHAT!!! Unbelievable you may be thinking, well here’s the recipe. So simple, only impossible if you don’t try it.

Caveat: You may be wondering why so many steps, well I am breaking this down to the barest details so you don’t have any problems when trying this recipe out. In general, the steps are not that many, each one will probably take you about a minute or so, but I know details help, especially with baking. You shouldn’t spend so much time making this at all, so don’t let the number of steps scare you.

1. Measure out the 1/4 teaspoon of yeast and the salt, then add to a mixing bowl

2. Measure out room temperature water carefully and pour into the bowl and stir. Remember, you don’t need this yeast to sit and froth or whatever.

Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: now, I feel I have to mention this. With this recipe, you don’t need warm water, you don’t need to wake up the yeast, but I believe if you are not sure if you yeast is still active, measure about a teaspoon of yeast, mix with warm water and a little sugar. If it is frothy after about 10minutes, then it means your yeast is fine. Don’t forget to THROW AWAY THAT MIXTURE. You don’t need it. Just revert back to the original recipe. I was using 7g sachets of yeast, so I knew my yeast was fine, but if you have yeast that comes in a big container and it has been open for a while, you may need this tip I just put down.

3. Add the flour and mix. At first, it is probably going to look like the dough will be too wet.

just keep mixing, then it will feel too dry, just keep mixing, and then you’ll see that the consistency is becoming sticky and moist. and best of all pulling apart from the side of the bowl.

According to Chef John, this is what you should be aiming for. Pulling away from the side of the bowl.

See, the dough though very sticky.

4. Cover with a plastic wrap, and then cover with a napkin or tea towel and place in your turned off oven for 12 – 14 hours or until it doubles in size.

You know me, I don’t take chances with baking, I do as they say. I waited 12 hours. I mixed this at 10.50pm yesterday, and didn’t touch it until 10.50am today and it had risen gloriously. Whoop, whoop.

5. Flour your spatula, and knock the air out of the risen dough unto a floured worktop.

Notice, the dough should still feel sticky, wet and elastic.

6. Sprinkle a little flour unto the dough and also ensure that your hands are well floured. The dough should still feel sticky, so don’t drown the dough in sprinkled flour. Just a little. Then you pat the dough with your fingers, and gently shape into a rectangle. This would enable you to knock the air out as well as be the pre cursor for the traditional baguette shape.

7. Then take a sharp knife and divide the rectangle into four relatively equal pieces.

8. Lay baking paper over your baking tray, and sprinkle flour or corn meal over it and set aside.

9. Take one of the pieces you just cut. Dust it a little with a sprinkling of flour.

Here it becomes fun. Think of playing with plasticine in nursery school. Take the straight end of the rectangle that is furthest away from you and pull it up, roll it down and press it down gently, till you see a fold develop, as if you are about to make a sausage or eba roll.

Keep repeating that process until you can see a sausage roll like shape form.

10. Once you achieve that cylindrical sausage roll shape, then place your fingers over the dough imagine your fingers are a rolling-pin. You are going to make movement with your fingers that will roll the dough, but not flatten. Starting in the centre and rolling and stretching it out towards the end, basically making the cylinder longer and longer in a few short seconds. Don’t apply weight, you just need a gentle movement. Think rolling plasticine as a child, you know that movement we make to mimic sausage rolls. Yesssssss, that one. Hehehehehe, told you this recipe will take you back to your childhood.

11. Then lift carefully and place on your floured baking paper lined tray. You may wish to tidy it up a bit, but don’t be neurotic about it. It will look great after it has risen. Repeat the process for another piece, until you now have 2 cylindrical loaves on the baking tray.

Remember, I wrote that this recipe makes 4 small baguette or two large ones. You are probably going to have the standard sized baking tray, and this will take just 2 baguette at a time.

12. If you were too generous about sprinkling flour unto the baking paper, take a damp cloth and wipe off any excess, then you can now be generous and sprinkle flour over the baguette dough.

13. Get out plastic wrap, sprinkle flour over it, and then place it over the baking tray,

and leave the dough to rise for another 1 to 1.5 hours or until just about doubled in size. I waited 1.5 hours, to play safe.

14. Pre heat the oven to 550 degree Fahrenheit which is roughly 288 degree centigrade, or in my case, the highest your oven can go. Mine doesn’t go beyond 250 degrees centigrade.

Put a baking pan or preferably a deep oven tray at the bottom of the oven and fill it with water, to keep the oven well humidified, which is important to getting that authentic french baguette crispy crust. Preheat for at least 10minutes or more, trust me, you are about to see why below.

15. Get out a pair of scissors and make 45 degree slashes across the length of the dough.

The scissors cut will give you little sharp tips or peaks. See picture below. Use the scissors to pat those down.

this is what the end result should look like. Do the same for the other loaf

16. Take a spray bottle and give the dough a nice misting.

If you don’t have a usable spray bottle like me, just use a pastry brush, dip it in a bowl of water, and coat the dough, just as you would, if you were using eggs for egg wash.

17. Place in your preheated oven, and set the timer for 25 minutes. The recipe said 15, but as my oven was not as hot, I knew it would take longer.

Now, this is where the recipe gets a little fiddly, but so far, you have been on the easy lane, so a little bit of effort is not so bad.

19. After 5 minutes, open the oven quickly and give a good spray of water, or if you are using a pastry brush like me, give it a water wash and close the oven. You will repeat this every 5 minutes. i.e. after 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and finally at the 20minute mark. So, basically 4 times. By the 10 or 15 minute mark, turn the tray, such that the loaf that was closest to the oven, now becomes the one closest to the door, just to get them evenly browned.

20. Take it out of the oven, once it has browned sufficiently, and leave it to completely cool. Do not cut it hot or warm. It must completely cool down. Take a bread knife and cut into it. The sound it makes when you cit through it, will just tell you, you’ve got a winner right there. Cest Magnifique.

Remember to bake the other two loaves.

Further Info: As I always strive to be honest about recipes, so you dot make the same mistakes I made, let me share my personal experience with this recipe. Hmmn, the first batch I baked, the 25minutes timing did not work at all. After the first 5 minutes, I did the water wash, and repeated it subsequently every 5 minutes, but I was using my hands to sprinkle water (bad, bad, bad, thing to do). After about 40minutes or so, this is what I got. I was sooooo upset, I kept thinking what did I do wrong.

Then I went back to the recipe, read a couple of comments, some people also had similar experiences and 2 solutions from other readers brought it home for me. 1. Your oven has to be really, really hot because there is no sugar or butter in this recipe, so make sure you preheat your oven well ahead of time. 2. If you don’t have a spray bottle, just use a pastry brush. With renewed sense of hope, and my oven still really hot from the last batch, I quickly made the slashes on the dough, used a pastry brush to give a water wash and I placed in the oven. By the 5 minute mark, I opened the oven and BOOM, it was baking as it should. I was so excited, I forgot to take pictures. I gave it a good water wash with the pastry brush, and put it back in the oven. I repeated the water wash every 5 minutes, stopping at the 20minute mark. I gave it another 5 minutes in and by 25minutes in total, this was my result. I was so relieved and pleased, I almost cried. Yippeeeeee.

I waited for them to cool, and everything I was supposed to see, hear, and feel about a true French Baguette, I got. Totally amazing. The classic holes you see in a baguette, were a nice surprise. It means i nailed this recipe, and so will you.

Permit me to show off these beauties. I am so proud of myself.

The part that made me really squeal with delight, is seeing those holes in the bread. Those are classic to a well made French bread. Thank you Chef John for a Food wish come true.

Making a Baguette should now be easy for you. Easier than the other 2 bread recipes on the blog. Remember to start the night before.

and finish off the next evening.

You can make this so many times in a week, and the good thing is, no sugar, eggs, or butter involved so this will be news for #teamfitfam. As for the carbs, come on, it is bread isn’t it. Lol

Oh, I was a very busy bee this weekend. I also made Cream Cheese. It turned out waaaaaaaay better than expected. Supermarket cheese is truly disgusting. If you were not planning to buy yoghurt this week, I advise you do. Trust me, it will be a purchase you won’t regret. I also made Zobo Jam. Off to clean my disaster of a kitchen. Have a nice week people. Lots of deliciousness coming up this week, get ready.

Comments

Labake says
February 16, 2014 at 9:36 pm

Sadly big treat is now extinct. I looooove baguette.

- dooneyrooney says
  February 16, 2014 at 10:28 pm
  
  Oh dear. When did they shut down? So sad. I hope you try this recipe
  
Olatunde says
February 17, 2014 at 4:10 am

Please Dooney, I also have those 7g sachets of yeast, Is a whole sachet the equivalent of the 1/4 teaspoon?

- dooneyrooney says
  February 17, 2014 at 1:23 pm
  
  Definitely not. 1/4 teaspoon of yeast is waaaaaaaaaay less than 7g. It is better if you get measuring spoons and a weighing scale. many sipermarkets e.g tesco, sainsburys and morrissons sell them
  
esther says
May 9, 2014 at 4:28 pm

Waooooo Am going to try this. I Love experimenting

- dooneyrooney says
  May 9, 2014 at 6:32 pm
  
  Oh please do. Thanks
  
Ade says
June 19, 2014 at 12:57 am

Can baking powder or baking soda replace yeast?

- dooneyrooney says
  June 19, 2014 at 10:46 am
  
  No it can’t
  
Sola says
July 26, 2014 at 6:20 pm

So beautiful !! well done Dunni. Is the baquette soft?

- dooneyrooney says
  July 26, 2014 at 10:40 pm
  
  t has the texture of store bought baguette and even better
  
Omotayo says
February 15, 2015 at 1:52 pm

I wonder if you can do this with oats alone, or oat flour/ rice flour/ coconut flour…

- dooneyrooney says
  February 15, 2015 at 4:10 pm
  
  Yes you can