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Crisp, deep golden, crust with a delightful soft inside baguette. This Long Ferment Sourdough Baguette Recipe will be the perfect blank canvas for your favourite sandwich toppings.

What is a baguette?

A baguette is a french bread, shaped into a long and thin loaf, with a crispy, crunchy and golden crust. It is made with the basic 4 ingredients: flour, water, yeast and salt. Usually baked in a stone oven and characterised by its crunchy exterior, soft chewy interior and unique taste.

A Few Mouth Watering Suggestions How To Consume Baguettes

Plain, freshly baked, tear a piece off and devour it! Simple and delicious!
Cut lengthwise with butter or your favourite condiment and topped with greens, tomato, cheese and a good piece of proscuitto or other cold meat, absolutely devine!
Traditionally sliced and served with pâté or cheese.
Sliced baguette, known as tartines, spread with butter and jam and dunked into coffee or hot chocolate.
Complements any soup beautifully as a side, torn into pieces and dunked in the soup.
Cut diagonally, topped with oven roasted tomato, salt and drizzled with a good quality olive oil.
Cut diagonally, fried in a pan with butter until crispy and golden on both sides, sprinkled with bbq spice. Can also be made in the oven in larger batches. Perfect for an appetizer.

Long Ferment Sourdough Baguette Recipe Ingredients

365g Water

513g Unbleached White Bread Flour

75g Active Sourdough Starter

10g Non-iodised Salt

25g Melted Coconut oil

Long Ferment Sourdough Baguette Recipe Method

Mix water and flour until no dry flour is visible.
Cover and let sit for 20min to 2 hours.
Add Sourdough starter, salt and oil and mix until no more oil is visible. Mark side of container at level of dough with tape or a wet erase marker.
Do 2 stretch and folds 15min apart.
Do 3 coil folds 30min apart.
Let dough rise 30-50%.
Put into fridge over night.
Divide and pre-shape (refer to p… for step by step photos)
Cover and let relax for 10min.
Prepare cloth or couche on a baking sheet dusted with rice flour.
Final shape and place seam side up in the cloth/couche.
Let rise until skin is taught and dough seem puffy.
Preheat oven to 300°C bottom element and 250°C top element.
Prepare cookie sheet with baking paper and rice flour.
Use a wooden board to transfer baguettes to cookie sheet.
Use a lame (razor) and score (slash) dough lengthwise 3-4 times.
Bake for 15-18min until golden brown and crispy.

Long Ferment Sourdough Baguette Recipe Shaping

Preshaping

It is important to pre-shape the dough into logs rather than balls, this helps to form the base of the final shape of the baguette. It does not have to be perfect of neat.

Step 1: Skin side down, fold top to middle, seal well.

Turn the pre-shaped dough over flatten gently trying to form a rectangle. Starting from the top on one side, fold it over into the middle and press gently to seal. Use flour only when necessary and as little as possible, as this can cause the dough to struggle to seal on itself.

Step 2: Turn 180°, fold top to middle, seal well.

Same method as above, work your way from one side and make sure the dough sticks well to itself.

Step 3: Turn 180°, fold top to bottom, seal well.

Final turn, now fold the dough all the way over to the bottom, you will feel that it is getting stiff and struggles to stretch, that is a good thing, just don’t tear it. Seal it very well, making sure it sticks well to itself and that there are no holes where it can loose tension and will not rise as well in that area.

Step 4: Roll into desired length, thickness.

Now roll from the middle, gently, tapering to the ends, if that is what you desire. Again check for a good seal, especially on the ends. Note that thicker is better, as thinner dries out very easily during the baking process.

Step 5: Place seam side UP on a flour dusted bakers couche.

Important. Even if using a couche that is designed and made to not stick, sprinkle some rice flour evenly where your shaped baguettes will lay. There is nothing as deflating as having to ‘unstick’ dough and loosing all structure in the process. Trust me, I know. If you do not have a bakers couch you can use a normal dish cloth, just liberally put rice flour then you will be fine.

Step 6: Final proofing until puffy.

You can either put these in the fridge and bake the next morning for a more destictive sourdough taste, or you can let them proof on the counter, checking for when they get nice and swollen form the air inside.

Step 7: Preheat oven and bake off!

In my experience, the hotter the better. Especially when baking on a ceramic stone. You get a much bigger oven spring and ‘ears’ on your baguettes with a blast of heat. Also it will bake faster and the crusts will be thinner. I recommend 300°C bottom and 250°C top. But you will have to experiment with your oven, as yours might have different heat distribution.

Sourdough Baguette

Crisp, deep golden, crust with a delightful soft inside baguette. The perfect blank canvas for your favourite sandwich toppings.

Ingredients

365g Water
513g Unbleached White Bread Flour
75g Active Sourdough Starter
10g Non-iodised Salt
25g Melted Coconut oil

Instructions

Mix water and flour until no dry flour is visible.
Cover and let sit for 20min to 2 hours.
Add Sourdough starter, salt and oil and mix until no more oil is visible. Mark side of container at level of dough with tape or a wet erase marker.
Do 2 stretch and folds 15min apart.
Do 3 coil folds 30min apart.
Let dough rise 30-50%.
Put into fridge over night.
Divide and pre-shape (refer to p... for step by step photos)
Cover and let relax for 10min.
Prepare cloth or couche on a baking sheet dusted with rice flour.
Final shape and place seam side up in the cloth/couche.
Let rise until skin is taught and dough seem puffy.
Preheat oven to 300°C bottom element and 250°C top element.
Prepare cookie sheet with baking paper and rice flour.
Use a wooden board to transfer baguettes to cookie sheet.
Use a lame (razor) and score (slash) dough lengthwise 3-4 times.
Bake for 15-18min until golden brown and crispy.