Citric Acid Free Crusty French Baguette
Few things in the kitchen feel as satisfying as pulling a deeply golden, crackling baguette from your own oven. This recipe keeps things beautifully stripped back — bread flour, sea salt, instant yeast, and cool water are all you need to build something truly spectacular. For anyone navigating a citric acid sensitivity, that simplicity is the whole point: no preservatives, no additives, no hidden acids that sneak into store-bought loaves to extend shelf life. The magic here comes from a long, cold ferment in the refrigerator, which develops complex flavor naturally without any shortcuts or questionable extras. A series of gentle stretch-and-folds builds structure in the dough, and a screaming-hot oven with a burst of steam gives you that signature blistered crust and open, chewy crumb. Scoring the loaves with confident diagonal slashes right before they go in is the moment it all starts to feel like a proper bakery operation. Once you hear that hollow tap on the bottom and smell the caramelized crust cooling on the rack, you'll understand why this four-ingredient formula is all anyone really needs.
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Learn more →Ingredients
8 servings
- 3 cups (360g) bread flour, plus more for dusting
- 1 ¼ tsp fine sea salt
- ½ tsp instant yeast
- 1 ¼ cups (295ml) cool water (about 65°f/18°c)
Instructions
- 1
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the bread flour, salt, and instant yeast. Pour in the cool water and stir with a wooden spoon or your hand until no dry flour remains and a shaggy dough forms. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- 2
With damp hands, perform a series of stretch-and-folds: grab one side of the dough, stretch it upward until it resists, then fold it over the center. Rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat three more times for a total of 4 folds. Cover and repeat this process two more times at 30-minute intervals (3 sets total). After the final fold, the dough should feel noticeably smoother and hold its shape briefly when released.
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