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Fast French Baguette

Fast French Baguette
  • Prep 1 hr 30 min
  • Total 2 hr 0 min
  • Servings 2
A lovely, delicious homemade baguette made from scratch and ready to eat in 2 hours! Adapted from a Mark Bittman recipe.
By Girl Versus Dough
Updated March 8, 2017

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lukewarm water
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
  • 3 to 3 1/2 cups Gold Medal™ unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons salt

Steps

  • 1
    In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk yeast into 1 cup water and let sit 5 minutes.
  • 2
    Add 3 cups flour and salt and mix, using paddle attachment, until just combined.
  • 3
    Switch to dough hook (or remove dough from bowl and knead by hand) and knead on medium speed for about 5 minutes (10 minutes if kneading by hand), until dough is smooth and elastic. Shape dough into ball and place in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
  • 4
    Punch down risen dough and divide in two pieces. Roll each piece into a foot-long rope and place side by side, about 3-4 inches apart, on a pizza stone or baking sheet lined with lightly floured parchment paper.
  • 5
    Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap and preheat oven to 400°F.
  • 6
    Once oven is preheated and dough has risen slightly (about 20-30 minutes), remove plastic wrap and slash each baguette a couple times using a very sharp knife.
  • 7
    Place baguettes in oven, reduce heat to 375°F and bake until golden brown, about 20-25 minutes. The bread should read about 210°F with a thermometer when done.
  • 8
    Remove from oven, spritz with water and allow to cool on cooling rack.

No nutrition information available for this recipe

  • I’ve been consistently baking bread for nearly two years. To the bread connoisseur or professional baker that’s a blip on the radar, but for me, it’s been a long, wonderful journey of learning how to make from-scratch bread in my home kitchen. I’m proud to say I have learned a lot along the way (though I still have much to learn). Of course, there have been plenty of moments of disbelief (“There’s no way I can make bread at home! Me? By myself? With my hands? No bread machine? Pssh, please.”), spills and tearful moments of impatience. I didn’t say baking bread is always a pretty process. But, with a lot of practice (and a lot, a LOT, of lessons in patience), I made homemade bread, and it was possible, and it wasn’t that hard, and I did have the time for it. A lot of people tell me they have no time to make homemade bread. And sometimes, I still don’t think I have the energy or the time to make it every week. But there are recipes like this fast French baguette that prove us all wrong. You can have yummy, fresh-baked bread on your table in two hours. Yes, TWO hours. It’s delicious, too, and very easy to make. What I love about this baguette recipe (besides its incredible speediness) is that the result is light and porous, just like a baguette that takes 24 hours to make. The bread does harden over time so it’s best to eat it right away, but even the crustiness of day-old baguette is perfect for toasting and topping with bruschetta or a tapenade. So, no excuses. Get down to business. We’ve got (yummy, easy, quick-to-make, very possible) bread to bake!
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