Baguette, or French for Bread

Don’t even think of baking a baguette if you haven’t got a masonry oven at your disposal.

Unless you’re as stubborn as I am and want to try it anyway.

In which case you should read this post, because I’ve discovered an easy and foolproof way of baking delicious baguettes, even in an electric oven.

Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of baking baguettes in a masonry oven. The oven hadn’t been used in the past 25 years or so, but it was in a perfect condition to provide me with the most perfect bread ever.

Only, I was a perfect analphabet with masonry ovens!

My first attempt resulted in a charred baguette in less than 5 minutes in the oven.

My second attempt resulted in a pale loaf although it had been 40 minutes in the oven. Still, it looked and tasted awesome, resembling nothing you can bake in a normal oven.

And then the weekend was over, and I had to return to my own kitchen and my electric oven. Maybe next time, I’ll learn to master that old masonry oven where my grandmother used to bake her bread for about four decades..

In the meantime, I’ve now learned to bake decent baguettes even in my electric oven. You just need to make a few special arrangements.

If you have a pizza stone, use it. If you’re like me and don’t possess one, use a normal oven tray but heat it in the oven for about 10 minutes so that it’s piping hot when you place your baguettes on top of it! That way, the baguettes keep their form and the oven spring is spectacular.

This recipe is based on Sébastien Boudet’s recipe. It’s baked with pre-ferment, so that the baguette doesn’t taste like yeast nor like sourdough starter (nothing wrong with the latter but somehow it doesn’t fit to baguette, in my opinion), and with an excellent crust and inner structure.

Here’s what you need to make two long baguettes or three shorter ones:

Pre-ferment:

• 500ml cold water


• 500ml all-purpose flour (do try replacing about 1/5 of the flour by rye flour, for an extra tasty baguette)


• 1g yeast


• 1tsp stiff sourdough starter

For the final dough:

• all of the pre-ferment


• about 300ml all-purpose flour


• 14g salt (about 2 tsp)

Combine water, starter, and yeast in a baking bowl. Stir, then add the flour and stir until you get a dough almost like a thick pancake batter. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and let stand for about 12 hours in room temperature.

Next day, the pre-ferment should be bubbling nicely and smell…delicious! If not, something went wrong (too cold? too much draft?) and you have to start over. (This never happened to me, so it’s very unlikely it will happen to you, either!)

Now, add the salt and the rest of the flour. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until you get a smooth and elastic dough. Cover it with a damp kitchen towel and let ferment for about 8-10 hours more (I do this overnight). In the morning, the dough will have at least doubled in size. Now it’s time to set your oven to 300C and start shaping your baguettes. (In case you’re baking in a masonry oven, you have to start heating the oven a couple of hours earlier, of course!)

Pour the dough onto a floured baking surface. Beat the air out, then divide the dough into three parts, and let them rest for about 5-10 minutes. Now, place the pizza stone or your oven tray in the oven so that it will be ready to receive your baguettes.

Then roll each part out into a rectangle as long as you want your baguette to be, and roll it into a tight roll, a bit like when you’re making cinnamon rolls! This is of course not the only way to shape a baguette, but that’s the one that works the best for a beginner as myself: it's the easy way to get an evenly-shaped baguette that holds its form!

Bake your baguettes on the pre-heated oven tray in 275C for about 20 minutes, or until well baked but not burned.

Let cool on a rack and serve with lots of salty butter or good olive oil!

And start planning how to get a masonry oven of your own ;)