These Sourdough Baguettes have a crisp, crackly crust, an open, airy crumb, and incredible sourdough flavor. This step-by-step recipe walks you through making bakery-style baguettes at home. Video included!
If you’ve mastered our Easy Sourdough Bread and are ready for your next baking adventure, these Sourdough Baguettes are a beautiful next step. They have everything I love about a classic baguette – a crisp, crackly crust, an open, airy crumb, and deep sourdough flavor.
This recipe was created by my friend Kris Osborne of Baked – the blog, and introduces two classic bread-baking techniques: levain and autolyse. You’ll also use the familiar stretch-and-fold method, followed by a long, cold proof that helps develop flavor and texture.
Plan ahead: these baguettes are a three-day process, but most of that time is hands-off. I’ve broken everything down step by step below, with photos and a video to guide you along the way.
Why you’ll love these sourdough baguettes
Bakery-style texture. A deeply golden, crackly crust gives way to an open, airy crumb with just the right amount of chew.
Incredible sourdough flavor. The levain and long, cold fermentation give the baguettes a wonderfully complex flavor without commercial yeast.
A great next step for sourdough bakers. If you’re comfortable making basic sourdough bread, this recipe introduces levain, autolyse, shaping, and scoring in an approachable way.
Mostly hands-off. The recipe spans three days, but much of that time is simply fermentation and resting.
Sourdough Baguette ingredients
- Active sourdough starter – Your starter should be bubbly and active and able to double within 6-8 hours of feeding.
- Bread flour – Provides the protein and gluten strength needed to create a chewy, airy baguette. Organic or locally milled bread flour is wonderful here.
- Water – Used to make both the levain and baguette dough.
- Fine sea salt – Adds flavor and strengthens the dough.
Helpful Equipment: A kitchen scale is highly recommended for accuracy. A baguette pan helps the loaves hold their shape while baking, but isn’t essential – you can also use a parchment-lined baking sheet. A bread lame, razor blade, or very sharp knife is helpful for scoring.
How to make Sourdough Baguettes
Day one: Make the levain (at night)
In a medium bowl, mix together the starter, water, and bread flour until well-combined. Cover with a plate and rest overnight (8-12 hours) until very bubbly and active. The levain should have many small bubbles across the top and throughout.
What is a Levain?
A levain is simply a small portion of sourdough starter that is freshly fed and allowed to ferment specifically for a batch of bread. Think of it as a small, active preferment made from your starter and used at peak strength. Using a levain gives you more control over the dough’s rise, flavor, timing, and consistency.
In the morning, the levain should have many small bubbles across the top and throughout.
Day two: Make the autolyse (morning)
Transfer all of the levain to a large bowl. Add the water and bread flour, and mix until all the flour is incorporated and a shaggy dough forms. Cover with a lid or damp towel and set aside for 45 minutes to rest. This is called the autolyse.
What is an autolyse?
An autolyse is a resting period that allows the flour to fully hydrate before the salt is added. This simple rest encourages gluten development naturally, improving the dough’s strength and extensibility while making it easier to handle.
Add the salt. After the 45-minute rest, add the salt to the dough and squeeze and pinch it in until evenly distributed. Perform a set of stretches and folds (see notes), then cover and set aside for 30 minutes to rest.
Stretch and folds. Continue performing a set of “stretch and folds” every 30 minutes for 3 hours, covering and resting between each round.
How to Do Stretch and Folds
To perform a series of stretches and folds, imagine the dough in 4 quadrants. Grab the dough in the 12 o'clock position and pull it up and over toward yourself (toward the 6 o'clock position). Watch the video above.
Then, rotate the bowl a quarter turn to the right and grab the dough in the 12 o'clock position again (formerly 9 o'clock), bringing it up and down toward 6 o'clock once more. Repeat this step 2 more times until each quadrant of the dough has made it to the 12 o'clock position and has been stretched and folded onto itself.
The dough will look like a little parcel.
Divide. Gently tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and cut it into 3 equal portions. Using a circular cupping motion with the palm of your hand, gently roll each ball of dough on the countertop to create a taut ball. Gently dust with flour and cover with a towel. Rest for 30 minutes.
Shape. Sprinkle your countertop with flour and gently pat the first ball of dough into a rectangle, approximately 9 inches long. Fold the top third of the dough down (like folding a business letter) and press it into the dough, using the heel of your hand, to stick the edges together.
Rotate the dough 180 degrees and repeat so that both the bottom and top thirds have been folded in. Fold the dough in half once more to create a slim silhouette, and, again, use the heel of your hand to connect the edges. Roll the dough so it's seam-side down and press and roll the dough out so that a baguette shape forms, pinching the edges to taper them, if necessary.
Place seam-side down on a greased baguette pan or a floured, parchment-lined sheet pan. Please refer to the video.
Cold Proof. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, anywhere from 14-18 hours. This is the long proof.
TIP: Take note of the time so you can adjust next time. In the morning, the dough will have expanded by 70-80% (this is the goal).
Day three: Score and Bake
The next morning, preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C) with the oven racks positioned in the middle and one level below.
Bake the baguettes directly on a baking sheet or baguette pan. Keep in mind, the baguette pan will leave slight perforations on the bottom of the bread.
Score. Using a lame (or sharp knife or razor blade), make 3-5 diagonal slashes into each piece of dough.
Bake. Place a handful of ice cubes onto the second baking sheet. Immediately place the baguette dough into the oven on the middle rack and place the baking sheet with ice on the rack below. Close the oven door and turn the temperature down to 450°F. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the bread is deep golden brown and the inside temp reaches 204°F.
Remove from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack before cutting.
Sourdough Baguette Tips
- Start with a very active starter. Your sourdough starter should reliably double within 6-8 hours after feeding before you begin.
- Watch the dough, not just the clock. Fermentation times can vary depending on the strength of your starter and the temperature of your kitchen and refrigerator.
- Handle the dough gently. Once the dough has developed air bubbles, avoid pressing out too much of the gas when shaping if you want that beautiful open crumb.
- Create surface tension when shaping. A taut outer surface helps the baguettes hold their shape and encourages a better rise in the oven.
- Don’t skip the steam. Steam helps create that characteristic crisp, crackly baguette crust.
- Let them cool before slicing. Cutting into the baguettes too soon can make the interior gummy. Allow the crumb to set as the bread cools.
How to Store Sourdough Baguettes
- Sourdough baguettes are best enjoyed the day they’re baked. Store leftovers in a paper bag at room temperature for another day to help preserve the crust.
- To refresh a baguette, warm it in a 350°F oven for 5-10 minutes, until the crust is crisp again.
- For longer storage, freeze the baguettes whole or sliced in an airtight freezer bag. Reheat directly from frozen or thaw at room temperature before warming in the oven.
Sourdough Baguette Troubleshooting
Why didn’t my sourdough baguettes rise?
The most common culprit is an underactive sourdough starter. Before making the levain, your starter should be bubbly and reliably double within 6-8 hours after feeding.
Why did my baguettes spread instead of rising?
The dough may have overproofed or may not have developed enough surface tension during shaping. A baguette pan can also help support the dough while you’re learning to shape baguettes.
Why isn’t my sourdough baguette crumb open and airy?
A tighter crumb can result from underproofing, insufficient gluten development, or handling the dough too aggressively during shaping. Be gentle with the dough once it has developed those beautiful air bubbles.
How do I know when my baguettes are properly proofed?
Proofing time will vary depending on the strength of your starter and the temperature of your refrigerator. The goal is roughly 70-80% expansion.
You can also use the poke test. Let the dough begin to come toward room temperature, lightly flour your finger, and gently press the dough.
If it springs back quickly, it may be underproofed. If it doesn’t spring back at all, it may be overproofed – bake it anyway! If it slowly springs back, it’s ready to bake.
Enjoy the process of learning how to make Sourdough Baguettes and let us know how it goes! Take a peek at all our sourdough recipes!
Happy Baking!
More Favorite Sourdough Recipes
Love baking? You might also like our Homemade Pie Crust recipe! Plus, check out all of our baking recipes!
How to Make Sourdough Baguettes: Step-by-Step Video
Description
This sourdough baguette is everything you want in the French classic–a crunchy crust, an open, airy crumb, and lots and lots of flavor. And it's easier to make than you think! Eat it plain, slathered in butter, or serve it with your favorite soup. For best results, this recipe requires a kitchen scale, a baguette pan and 3 days time!
Ingredients
- 65 grams active bubbly starter
- 65 grams tepid water
- 65 grams bread flour
- 420 grams tepid water
- 600 grams bread flour
- 12 grams salt
Instructions
Day 1: (Evening) Levain
Make the levain: In a medium bowl, mix together the starter, water, and bread flour until well-combined. Cover with a plate and rest overnight (8-12 hours) until very bubbly and active. The levain should have many small bubbles across the top and throughout.
Day 2: Mix, stretch and folds, shape, bulk rise overnight.
- Mix. In the morning, transfer all of the levain to a large bowl. Add the water and bread flour, and mix until all of the flour is incorporated and a shaggy dough is formed. Cover with a lid or damp towel and set aside 45 minutes to rest. This is called the autolyse.
- Salt, stretch and fold. After the 45-minute rest period, add the salt to the dough and squeeze and pinch the salt into the dough until evenly distributed. Perform a set of stretch and folds (see video), then cover and set aside for 30 minutes to rest. Continue to perform a set of stretch and folds every 30 minutes for 3 hours, covering and resting in between each round.
- Divide. Gently tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and cut it into 3 equal portions. Using a circular cupping motion with the palm of your hand, gently roll each ball of dough on the countertop to a create a taut ball. Gently dust with flour and cover with a towel. Bench rest 30 minutes.
- Shape. Sprinkle the countertop with flour and gently pat the first ball of dough into a rectangle, approximately 9-inches long. Fold the top third of the dough down (like folding a business letter) and press it into the dough, using the heel of your hand, to stick the edges together. Rotate the dough 180 degrees and repeat so that both the bottom and top thirds have been folded in. Fold the dough in half once more to create a slim silhouette, and, again, use the heel of your hand to connect the edges. Roll the dough so it's seam-side down and press and roll the dough out so that a baguette shape forms, pinching the edges to taper them, if necessary.
- Bulk rise. 14-18 hours. Place them seam side down on a greased baguette pan or heavily dusted, parchment-lined sheet pan. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight 14-18 hours.
Day 3: Morning. Preheat, score and bake!
- Preheat. The next morning, preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C) with the oven racks positioned in the middle and one level below. Have a baking sheet ready to add ice cubes to. (See notes.)
- Score. When the oven is hot, remove the baguette dough from the fridge. Using a lame (or sharp knife or razor blade), make 3-5 diagonal slashes into each piece of dough (¼-½ inch deep).
- Bake. Place a handful of ice cubes onto the second baking sheet. Immediately place the baguette dough into the oven on the middle rack and place the baking sheet with ice on the rack below. Close the oven door and turn the temperature down to 450°F. Bake for 30 – 35 minutes, or until the bread is a deep golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
Notes
Stretch and folds: To perform a series of stretch and folds, imagine the dough in 4 quadrants. Grab the dough in the 12 o'clock position and pull it up and over toward yourself (toward the 6 o'clock position). Then, rotate the bowl a quarter turn to the right and grab the dough in the 12 o'clock position again (formerly 9 o'clock), bringing it up and down toward 6 o'clock once more. Repeat this step 2 more times until each quadrant of the dough has made it to the 12 o'clock position and has been stretched and folded onto itself. The dough will look like a little parcel.
Baking: When transferring the cold baguette dough to a parchment-lined pan, it will be snake-ish and hard to work with. Move quickly and efficiently so you don't disrupt the shape of the baguette too much. Alternatively, you can bake the baguettes directly on the baguette pan until you get more comfortable working with the dough. Keep in mind, the baguette pan will leave slight perforations on the bottom of the bread.
Steam: Create steam by placing ice cubes on a sheet pan on the lowest rack, under the baguettes.
Storage. Bread is best eaten on the day that it's made, but if stored in paper will keep an additional day. You can freeze baguettes, sliced or whole. If slicing, freeze individual slices on a baking sheet, then place into a freezer bag. If freezing whole, wrap tightly with plastic freezer wrap, then place in a freezer bag. Bread will keep this way for a few months.
How to tell if the dough is proofed long enough? Do the poke test: let dough come to room temp. Flour a finger and poke the dough. If it springs back quickly, it may be underproofed. If it springs back slowly, it is just right. If it doesn’t spring back, it is likely overproofed (bake it anyway!).
Nutrition
- Serving Size: ¼ of a baguette
- Calories: 196
- Sugar: 0.2 g
- Sodium: 388.7 mg
- Fat: 0.9 g
- Saturated Fat: 0.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 39.3 g
- Fiber: 1.3 g
- Protein: 6.5 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
My baguette tasted good but came out a strange dull brown….I’m at 5400′ altitude. Could this affect the color?
Thank you, Jeanne
Hi Jeanne, interesting. Did you add any other type of flour? I have not heard of altitude affecting the color- but this doesn’t mean it couldn’t. Does anyone else know the answer to this?
Thank you for this wonderful recipe. The clear instructions made what I thought was an impossible task into a very approachable one. (Oh, and the bread is delicious!)
Perfect Jocelyn, so happy they worked out for you!
I made my baguettes in a covered ceramic baker and omited the ice. I baked at 35 mins but didn’t get the browning I thought I should.
Hi Alice, I usually bake these uncovered on a sheet pan- you could try uncovering them at the end until they brown up a bit?
Do you know about how much active starter in grams it ends up being? I fed my starter this morning before reading this recipe. Thanks!
Hi Sarah- 65 grams. 🙂
Thank you for giving us such easy steps to follow. The baguettes turned out fantastic. After 35min I took them out of oven and had to put back in oven for a further 10min upside down for the bottom to brown. Should I have taken out the pan with ice at halftime? I feel that’s why it didn’t go crusty and brown underneath. It worked fine though!
Hi Nitsa- I am glad you were able to make this work! And I am not sure- I suppose you could try that next time and see if that makes a difference?
Can I use AP flour instead of bread flour?
Some people have with success, but I personally havent so not 100% positive here. My guess is, it should be ok?
I added the salt when I added the flour and water!!! Did I completely ruin it??? 😭😭😭
No it should be ok. 🙂
We made this recipe for the first time – ever – cooking with a sourdough starter. It turned out PERFECT. Our baguettes are something to sing about. I followed the recipe to a “T”. Thank you to the author!
Amazing, so happy to hear this!
Hi,I am struggling to understand the timeline too, it says make the levain overnight, then bulk rise / shape. This takes me to about mid day.Should I then leave the baguettes out until the evening before popping them in the fridge? Or put in the fridge straight after shaping? Thank you!
Hi Deborah, refrigerate when you are done shaping ( mid day-ish) and bake in the morning.
Hi Sylvia,
Thank you for your answer, for some reason I am still getting really small bubbles inside, like the dough is underproofed.
Ps: your no knead sourdough recipe has been a life changer, thank you so much for it 🙂
Thanks Deborah! You can try fiddling with the time- if your fridge is super cold, it may take a bit longer.
I’m having a little bit of a hard time understanding the timeline. Is it
Mix dough (stretch and folds for first 3 hrs) Bulk rise (6-8hrs?) THEN dump out to shape? Or do you dump out to shape after the first 3hrs of stretch and folds? Thank you!
Hi Chelsea- Shape after the first 3 hours. Then bulk rise in the fridge over night. 🙂
My bread is flat, it was nice starter full of bubbles, the dough nicely spring back, baked in 480 under cover ,than 450 and came back flat ….what could be wrong ?
Hi Lenik, I think it may be overproofed. I would try lessening the rising time?
Is 6 hours the refrigerator long enough?
You are right on the edge there! Could be ok??
Omg so good!!! So crispy on the outside and chewy soft in the middle. A dream!!! I did the stretch and folds at night and quite honestly skipped some bench rest time because of bedtime and it still turned out perfectly. Thank you!!!
awesome Angeli!
Absolutely delicious. This was the second time trying baguettes are they turned out so delicious. They were airy and light on the inside and crisp and the outside. This will be my go to recipe.
So glad these worked out for you Tiffany!
Loving this recipe! It’s very forgiving of my goofs and errors (e.g., one time I forgot bench rest; another I dropped my baguette pan upside down when I was taking it out of the fridge). This week I subbed 50g of the flour with ground flaxseed and I upped the water by about 15g since flax absorbs so much. It came out amazing (although more “rustic” looking). I also used half the dough to make a loaf and it was epic as well! Happy to share images if you’d like.
Awesome to hear Julie!
I accidentally added salt to the mixture before the first 45 min rest. Is this going to mess up my bread? How can I fix it?
Hey Kiley! You should be ok- can’t really fix it at this point- I would just keep going. 🙂
This recipe does not appear to have any bulk rising requirement, only a second rise in the refrigerator. Is there a reason for omitting the bulk rise?
See “day two” of the recipe card!
This recipe covers about 6-8 during day 2. To avoid over bulk fermentation, I don’t want my sd in fridge for much longer than 8hrs. Where in the recipe can you take a break in terms of steps, that won’t harm the sd end result? Thanks in advance, it’s a great recipe!
Hey Rachelle! I’m not sure I understand the question… to take a “break” at any point, place the dough in the fridge (not really a true break) but this will slow down the fermentation. Hope that helps?
Perfect, Thanks!
I was so worried I would mess this up as I’m very new to the sourdough adventure, but your directions and video were so helpful and easy to follow that my finished baguettes were amazing. Thank you so much for this recipe. I have shared it with many of my sourdough friends.
What a great feeling! So happy it worked out for you!
This was my first time doing a baguette of any kind, and they turned out perfectly. I used my wholemeal starter, and the baguettes are a 350g/150g organic white bread flour/organic wholemeal bread flour.
The crust, rise and crumb were far better than I’d ever expected. Great recipe, thank you so much.
Great to hear Paul!
Is it possible to do a shorter second proof out of the fridge so I can bake them on the second day?
Hi Ros, I think so, but haven’t tried. But I don’t see why not.
What’s the longest you can leave the baguettes in the fridge for the second rise?
It really depends on your fridge temp. Perhaps 12 hours?
I am having trouble viewing the video. After the ad plays, it changes to a different video
Hi there, just refresh the page. Click play. You can skip the ad and then halfway through the video will ask if you want to “stay”, click that to keep watching. 🙂
question, can you use this same recipe to make a sourdough loaf and simply keep it in one lump? or is this recipe only for sourdough *baguettes*
Hi Alex- I haven’t tried- but I don’t see why not?
I was hosting our monthly dinner club and wanted to make this bread ahead of the party. So, I partially cooked the loaves – around 20 minutes. (I did leave one in for our dinner that night.) After cooling, wrapped in foil and then frozen. Day of party pulled them and after thawed baked 8-10 minutes till nicely browned. I think I will do this from now on with my extra loaves.
This is my favorite sourdough bread recipe now. Thank you!
Awesome to hear!
I’ve used this recipe a couple times and they have been delicious, but the baguettes seem to flatten after the second proofing. Is my fridge too cold, am I proofing too long?
To me it sounds over proofed? Perhaps try shortening the first proof?
Sounds like a great plan! Question did you use the ice cubes in oar or final bake?
No, I just thawed them and then baked about 8 minutes.