Seed Oil Free Crusty French Baguette
There is something deeply satisfying about pulling a crackling, golden baguette out of your own oven, and this recipe delivers that bakery-worthy result with just four ingredients. Bread flour, sea salt, instant yeast, and cool water — that's the entire list, which means there's no canola oil, no soybean oil, and nothing processed sneaking into your loaf. For anyone navigating refined seed oils, store-bought bread can be a minefield of ingredient labels, so baking your own is genuinely the cleanest solution. The method leans on a long, cold ferment and a series of stretch-and-folds to build structure and flavor without any shortcuts or additives. Steam from a pan of hot water in the oven creates that signature shatteringly crisp crust, while the inside stays open and chewy. It takes patience across two days, but the hands-on time is minimal and the payoff — a deep golden crust that sounds hollow when you knock on it — is absolutely worth it.
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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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