Content

• Ingredients
• Steps
• Method 1 of 3: Making the dough
• Method 2 of 3: Shaping the bread
• Method 3 of 3: Bake the bread
• Tips
• What do you need

A piece of crispy baguette and fresh butter: what could be better? Try a French baguette straight out of the oven and you'll never go to the bakery for bread again. Here you will find simple instructions on how to make the famous bread. The recipe is for 2-3 large loaves.

Ingredients

• 6 cups flour
• 1 tbsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp yeast
• 2 cups warm water

Steps

Method 1 of 3: Making the dough

1. 1 Dissolve the yeast. Combine 1/4 cup flour and half cup warm water, then add yeast and let it dissolve. When they start to foam, the dough is ready.
2. 2 Combine the rest of the flour and salt in a large bowl. Mix them with a whisk or use a hook mixer to knead the dough.
3. 3 Add loose yeast.
4. 4 Add water to the dough. If you are using a mixer, put it on the slowest setting, or use a wooden spoon and stir the dough by hand. Add a little water (a few tablespoons) and stir the dough constantly until the water is completely mixed with the dough and leaves the edges of the dough.
5. 5 Stop stirring the dough and let it rest. The dough should soak up the water completely, so just let it sit for a few minutes.
6. 6 Continue stirring the dough. Add water or flour to the bowl until the dough begins to separate from the sides of the bowl completely, leaving no pieces of dough. Pinch a little dough, it should be slightly sticky. If it's too runny, add more flour (¼ to ½ cup) and stir a little more.
7. 7 Knead the dough. Set the mixer to medium setting. If you are kneading the dough by hand, stir for another 10-15 minutes so that the ingredients mix thoroughly and the gluten develops properly. Sprinkle flour on your work surface and hands, spread out the dough and knead. hands
8. 8 Let the dough rise. Place the dough in a bowl three times the amount of flour used. Brush a bowl with cooking oil, lay out the dough and cover with a tea towel. Place in a warm place and let it rise.
   • For the first time, the dough should rise in a couple of hours, depending on the room temperature. You can also put the dough in the refrigerator overnight and let it rise slowly there.
9. 9 Hump ​​the dough. Once the dough has tripled in volume, wrinkle it by pressing your palms against the bottom of the bowl and letting air out of the dough.
10. 10 Let the dough rise again. Cover the bowl with cling film and set the dough to rise a second time. Once it doubles in size, crumple it again.
11. 11 Let the dough rise a third time. As the dough rises three times, the air bubbles in the dough will be very small. If you prefer very large air bubbles in your bread, or don't have time to rise the dough three times, you can reduce the number of lifts to one or two times.

Method 2 of 3: Shaping the bread

1. 1 Form loaves or baguettes. Cut the dough into two or three pieces. Sprinkle flour on your work surface and hands. Take one piece of dough and roll it into a rectangle. If you intend to bake a loaf, the rectangle should be shorter and thicker. If you intend to bake a baguette, roll out the dough into a longer and thinner rectangle. Then twist the loaf or baguette with a tube as tight as possible, and pinch the seam at the end.
   • You can also make bread of any other shape. A round loaf can be formed by wrapping all the corners in the dough.
2. 2 Place the loaves on a baking sheet. First lightly grease a baking sheet with vegetable oil and sprinkle with flour.
3. 3 Let the dough rise one last time. Cover the loaves with a damp tea towel and let rise twice. This can take about 45-60 minutes, depending on the room temperature.

Method 3 of 3: Bake the bread

1. 1 Preheat the oven to 230⁰C.
2. 2 Make cuts in the loaf. Remove the towel from the loaves and cut each loaf with a very sharp knife. Traditionally, diagonal cuts are made to a depth of one centimeter.
   • You can bake bread with a salty crust. There are two ways. The first way: cover the loaves with a mixture of one egg, 1 tbsp. salt and a quarter glass of warm water. Second way: sprinkle the loaves with water and sprinkle with coarse salt.
   • If you are a salty lover, combine the two methods in one: first apply a mixture of egg and salt, and then sprinkle with coarse salt.
3. 3 Place the loaves in the oven. Once the oven has reached the desired temperature, place the baking sheet with the loaves on the medium level. Spray some water over the oven to create the most humid environment possible. Due to moisture, the bread will rise more and the surface of the dough will not break.
   • Instead of spraying water, you can place a container of water on the bottom of the oven for the first 10 minutes of baking.
   • If you have a gas oven, then the container with water must be placed a little higher.
   • The ideal oven is a special baking oven, but it costs about 370 thousand rubles.
4. 4 After 10 minutes, lower the temperature to 175 ° C. Spray the oven with water again.
5. 5 Bake the bread for 20 minutes. Measure the temperature with a special thermometer. Remove the loaf trays from the oven as soon as the internal temperature of the bread reaches 90 ° C.If the temperature is much lower, the bread will be sticky. If it is much higher, you have dried out the bread.
6. 6 Remove the loaves from the oven and place them on a wire rack to cool. Serve the bread as soon as it has cooled down. You can traditionally cut the bread into portions or tear off the pieces from the loaf. Brush a slice of fresh bread with butter or jam.

Tips

• If you want to preserve the bread for as long as possible, put it in a bag as soon as it has cooled and freeze it. Then defrost in the refrigerator to prevent the salt from melting from the loaf rind.
• Make sure all ingredients are fresh and good.
• Never throw away old bread. It can be used to make wonderful French toast or bread pudding.
• Bread is stored for a very long time in the refrigerator in a plastic bag. However, over time, the salt is absorbed into the bread. The taste characteristics remain unchanged, but the appearance of the bread becomes unsightly.

What do you need

• Mixer with dough hook or large cup and large wooden spoon
• Rolling pin
• Baking tray
• Spray bottle