Sourdough Baguette Recipe

Step 1

Start off by making your levain.In a clean jar, mix the 70g starter, 70g flour and the 70g water and stir well. Leave it to sit for at least 4 hours until it has well-doubled, but not collapsed. *See notes on starter in the post above.

Step 2

Once your levain is well underway and at least nearly doubled, you can start the autolyse. Mix the 900g flour and the required amount of water and use wet hands to bring it together into a rough ball of dough. Leave this to sit for a minimum of an hour.

Step 3

After it has sat for at least an hour and the levain has doubled, add the salt and levain to the dough and mix it well together using wet hands.Transfer it to a glass/stainless steel or ceramic tray.

Step 4

For two hours, coil fold the dough every 15 minutes. See the video in the blog post on how to do a coil fold.

Step 5

After two hours of folding, leave the dough to sit for another two hours.

Step 6

Gently tip the dough from the tray onto a lightly floured bench and cut it into 4 even pieces.Take one piece and form it into a square. Take each of the four corners of the square, and bring them, one by one into the middle to create a little parcel. Flip this parcel upside down so it’s seam side down and then cup this gently in between your hands and rotate it around and around on the bench to form a ball.Leave the balls on a floured bench, covered with a tea towel, for around 2-3 hours until slightly puffed. If your kitchen is on the cooler side, the dough may need to be left for longer.

Step 7

Once your dough has sat, you can shape each dough ball into a baguette and place it either in a baguette tray or in-between floured towels. To shape the dough, grab a dough ball and place it seam side up on a floured work surface. Gently form it into a horizontal rectangle. Take the bottom third of the dough and fold it up to meet the middle. Use your palm to push it and down and seal it together. Rotate the dough 180 degrees, and do the same to the top third of the dough.Now starting at the top right corner, fold over the top layer again with your left hand, but in small increments. Each bit you fold down, use your right palm to push it in and elongate the dough. Then start rolling it on the bench to lengthen it, tapering off at the ends to get that traditional baguette tip. It's helpful to brush some of the flour away before this step of the shaping, as the baguettes will need to grip on the bench a little bit to create surface tension in the roll.

Step 8

Place the baguettes in-between floured towels in a baguette tray, or pushed against each other so they keep their shape. Then they’ll go in the refrigerator for 8-20 hours.

Step 9

When you are ready to bake the breads, preheat your oven and two oven trays to 230°C(446 °C), fan-bake. If you're using a standard oven, increase the oven temperature a bit. Once the oven is up to temperature, remove the baguettes from the fridge and gently tip the breads from the floured towels onto the heated oven trays. Sprinkle with a little flour and give at least 3 big angled slashes in the dough to allow the air to escape. How many slashes you do is up to you but if you don’t do enough or they aren’t deep enough, the air will burst out where you might not want it to.Place a few ice cubes in a tray in the oven alongside the baguettes to create the steam that will set the crust.

Step 10

Bake the baguettes for 30-35 minutes until browned to your liking.