Make Beautiful Baguettes With Claire Saffitz | Try This at Home | NYT Cooking 

Thanks for having me!

For those who don’t want to buy extra equipment - I’ve had good luck with the following: (1) a piece of cardboard wrapped in plastic wrap and taped instead of the transfer board, (2) a well-floured cotton tea towel instead of the couche, (3) a baking sheet (sheet tray, jelly roll pan) upside down and preheated in the oven instead of a baking stone, (4) another upside down baking sheet or just a large cutting board to transfer the loaves into the oven. Of those, the only one that makes any difference is the baking stone (a baking sheet just doesn’t hold heat as well), but the results are still really good and it’s what I would do if I wanted to try this once without being sure I was going to be regularly baking bread from now on.

Without doubt THE best baker making tutorials on RU-vid. Authentic and a great teacher with no airs and graces. Love love love you Claire.

I got infected with the sourdough bug during the pandemic. It was Claire and Brad's BA video that had me had successful results. I loved it so much I pursued baking professionally and now am making up to 120 baguettes a day. Absolutely love that this journey has come full circle with this video. Excited to use these tips tomorrow at 4am!

Imagine being Claire's neighbor

Please feature her more on this channel! I love all her baking & cooking tips c:

I’m a heavy consumer of food and baking content on all platforms. I have been since I was very young. Claire’s content is honestly the most insightful, well explained, informative, baking content you can find. Her level of experience and collection of knowledge, her detail oriented recipe writing, and ability to explain complex baking techniques is unmatched by nearly every other creator I can think of. Don’t take these videos for granted bakers, this is some of the best academic baking content ever created.

I started baking bread 40 years ago while working in a bakery, learning from the long-time baker who headed the staff. It was wonderful training but I have always wished for a more formal education. I have been reading baking books and watching videos since that time. Claire is the best teacher I have ever been exposed to. I have enjoyed highly technical books on bread baking and I live in a city where I can buy really great, artisanal bread from people who write and teach. But this is what I've always wished for, someone who brings it home with a down-to-earth attitude, who knows the techniques and the secrets and can impart what's important in a way that's not just understandable but really, really enjoyable. And the production values of these videos really help. Claire is a delight and a treasure. I am so grateful that I have access to these amazing tutorials!!!

She’s made an intimidating process understandable-such a great teacher. I’m going to try it!

She doesn't give the measurements in the video, I guess because they want you to visit the website and subscribe. For anyone interested - FOR THE POOLISH ⅛teaspoon active dry yeast 60grams/7 tablespoons all-purpose flour, with 10 to 12 percent protein content (such as King Arthur all-purpose flour) FOR THE DOUGH ½teaspoon active dry yeast 500grams/3½ cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour with 10 to 12 percent protein content, plus more for dusting 10grams/1 tablespoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal) or fine sea salt I would note that this is a 77% hydration dough which is VERY HIGH for a beginner. I regularly make baguettes with 65% hydration and get fantastic results. Otherwise it looks like a solid baguette recipe.

12:50 a little trick for having less dough stick to your hands. 1- rub a layer of olive oil into your hands. 2- rub several drops of water into your olive oil hands. this creates a bit of an emulsion. it works better than olive oil or water alone.

Claire is the BEST baking teacher! I love her channel and this channel! She’s right - for me, the two biggest challenges are shaping the loaf & getting the final proofing time correct. One thing she knows, but did not articulate, is -when slashing, each slash starts about halfway down from the slash above. They overlap! Watch her - she does it perfectly! Also, the overnight chill is what gives the dough it’s flavor.

Just discovered Claire yesterday- better late than never- and I'm totally in love! 😊 Amazing teacher, especially love the pace and patience with which she explains everything. So much to learn, but so enjoyable at the same time. God bless you!

Really nice to see a lefty working, just makes sense to my brain and a Claire who knew they’d be another lefty Claire 😊😊😊

This is the most detailed baguette-making show I've watched. I've watched tens. Thank you. This will be this weekend's project. Thank you.

In this baker’s opinion, this hydration formula might be a little high to start with if you have not made them before. I would recommend 68% hydration. Also, use a 50/50 mix of brown rice flour and AP flour to coat you baking cloth, it releases much better. One last thing is do the final proof with the seam down, that way you can flip the loaf with cloth onto the board then use the board just flip it over onto the parchment paper. Edit: sprinkle a tiny amount semolina between the parchment and the loading board…

Now I see the difference between traditional French baguettes Vs the Vietnamese one using for Bánh mì. The Vietnamese ones are more hydrated and baked at much higher temp in shorter time. The results is a baguettes with much thinner crust but very crispy.

I use my cuisinart to mix the poulish, put it in the oven overnight in the cuisinart bowl, covered. In the morning I add everything to the poolish until it slaps around the bowl and go from there. Easy peasy.

Just made this recipe for the first time and the bread turned out amazing. Out of the oven for 15 minutes and one loaf is already gone!😋 Thank you for posting the video’

Finally made the baguettes. Over the last 3ish years, I've tried multiple recipes, but just couldn't get that open structure. Till now. Thank you, Claire! I've made several of her recipes, but this one and the one for croissants are my favorites. She makes fiddly recipes very doable. Such an amazing teacher!

Her tutorials are SO excellent! I think they are some of the best I have ever seen. Yay Claire!

Claire's genuine encouragement, paired with her years of sensational expertise- ALWAYS comes through in her videos/ collaborations

Claire is a National Treasure. Thank you for this content.

Claire is such a natural and fantastic teacher! Please feature her more!

I made these today, and they were amazing! I live in France and eat baguette every day, and honestly it's better than what I get in a lot of bakeries. I used a plastic cutting board as my transfer peel and it worked perfectly, and a regular kitchen towel to proof the bread in. I thought it would be loads of work, but it's a bunch of small actions spread over two days so it's not very labour intensive. Also, I really thought that my dough was too wet,but I stuck with it and it worked out perfectly. Thank you Claire!

She does it again! Literally what can't Claire perfect.

🎉omg!! CLAIRE she is awesome!!!! I could learn from her ALL day.

FAN FLIPPIN TASTIC. I"m made two different recipes of baguettes, but this tutorial is OUTSTANDING. Welcome back carbs.... I'll have one with butter, one with olive oil and flaked sea salt, and the other with ham n cheese.

Just a pleasure to watch a Master Baker at work. Outstanding teaching moment! Have baked several of Claire's recipes and the highest praise I can give is that her recipes work. They just stone cold always work. Have been home baking bread for about 8 years, but was always intimidated by the Baguette. I think I'm good to go now.

I already had sourdough proofing in the refrigerator but watched the video for a refresher on shaping. So much good stuff especially the peel to transfer from couche to parchment. I use hot water onto hot lava rocks for steam. Claire’s video helped to smooth out all the rough edges.

I've attempted baguettes about a dozen times over the years only to be underwhelmed by the results. However, Claire's recipe and techniques have brought me closest to baguette nirvana. I will be executing this recipe again and again in the future and now there is hope for achieving baguette perfection. Thank you, Claire!

I like that this series goes all out with the technique, equipment, and ingredients. A lot of RU-vidrs err on the side of approachability and simplicity for a compromised end product, but sometimes you want to challenge yourself! You don’t need to, but sometimes it is fun to aim for the most traditional and impressive style of the dish.

I love watching Claire so much! I do miss all the old vids on BA and I love her new channel as well. She just explains things so well even for someone like me who isn't too familiar with baking. All of her instructions make sense and there is a reason for everything.

As a home bread baker, and I’ve done it all……yeast, sourdough, Poolish, etc, this video is excellent. Very thorough and explains it all. What I don’t like about using a Poolish is the extra steps, vs, using a straight no knead overnight bulk fermentation. You’re ready to go on day 2.

I went to school. I bake. I know this stuff and yet, I cannot stop watching. You are an excellent teacher Claire

Claire is such a natural and fantastic teacher! Please feature her more!. Thanks for having me!.

Bread making warms my heart. Claire like always never disappoints. 🫶

Always a pleasure seeing Claire on the channel. Love her so much ❤

Claire is truly one of the best for making something so intimidating become digestible. I have never baked before in my life. I decided this would be the first thing I'll make because my family loves baguettes. Even though I felt like I was doing everything wrong during the process due to having no experience, the bread came out incredible and delicious. I make it once a week because we end up eating it all in two days every time.

I lived above a famous bakery in Paris. When I got home I couldn't find a decent baguette, so I taught myself how to make them. ( there was no YT back then) This video will get you there. Nowadays I don't eat much bread but I still love to bake. So I give bread to my neighbors and I find baskets of flowers and homegrown foods on my porch. Win.

This was my Fourth attempt at baguettes. Thanks to Claire and this video it was a tremendous success. Thank you so much! I'm your biggest fan.

claire saffitz does it again. youre the best, Claire. thank you for all you do.

Best. Baguettes. Ever. This recipe works consistently. Thanks to Claire, I’m now a bread goddess in my own home.

love Claire! Simply the best baker/teacher!!!

OMG Claire thank god you’ve found another way to reach us, we’ve missed you girl ❤

What a wonderful tutorial from start to the first bite of the jambon beurre!!! I could almost taste it …and the crunch!!! Made me homesick for Paris! Thank you! Wish I were one of your neighbors…

I used to make Italian bread for a living in the late 70’s through half of the 80’s. Our dough was simple to make for the purposes of getting production moving asap. 200 pounds of flour, one Kyrol and one All Trumps high gluten baking flour. 100 pounds of water, and 5 pounds of Red Star yeast. My boss threw salt in by hand at different intervals in the mix. Depending on what season it is, summer inside a bakery is hot. All windows and doors must be closed and no fans while dough is exposed. After the mix the dough is put into a lightly oiled troth it’s 300 pounds at this point. It’s covered with a wooden board and left for 2 hours to rise in order to start cutting it and weighing each piece. The bakers helper puts those weighed pieces on a wooden peel floured, then into a bread tin. When the weighing is complete they are pulled out one board at a time to be rounded. My boss Dan rounded two at a time one in each hand, half of the doughs for long Italian breads. For round Italian bread he had a rounder that the piece of dough went into which rounds tighter than our hands. Back on the floured peels and into the tin to proof. About an hour later it’s time for him to hand roll 75 long breads. The rounds come off and go to a peel with cornmeal and back in to rise to full size. The 75 long one go onto a cornmeal peel and in their tins to rise too full size. Before cooking the rounds are taken out one tray at a time and smashed by the bakers hands. They go back in the tin to rise again and the baker starts cooking the long first. His blade to cut was an old school razor blade broken in half taped to a popsicle stick. 😂 His oven was a deep early 1900’s brick oven, set to 410 degrees.

It is a lifes mission of mine to become a maestro of making a Baguette. This is where the journey begins

I just got back from Europe which included 5 days in Paris. I've developed a bit of sensitivity to store bought bread which made me a little on edge about having bread almost 3 times a day. I had zero issues with French bread. I built a large brick oven at home, primary for pizza, but I am certainly going to be baking in it soon using residual heat. Cant wait to try this recipe and its always good to see Claire baking in the kitchen.

So I made this as directed and was mostly happy with the results. This is higher hydration than what I'm used to for a baguette and I struggled a bit with sticking during the shaping so definitely not for first timers. I really like the crumb and texture that come with higher hydration. Unfortunately I didn't get the oven spring I usually get, though, which I think is for want of more strength building. The first time I made it I bulked and baked same day without the overnight stage and actually got better oven spring, to my surprise. The version left to chill overnight was flabbier, almost over-fermented, without an appreciable improvement in flavor, so in the future I would stick with doing everything same day. That means bulk fermentation at room temp or slightly warmer for 3-4 hours until it's nice and gassy, then shape, proof and bake.

I am definitely going to try this! It looks so much easier and I’m happy I don’t need sourdough starter. Thanks again Claire!

Cooked two batches of these baguettes last night. They turned out amazing. I've tried 4 other baguette recipes on RU-vid and these were the best thus far. I will admit that her dough was the trickiest to form the final product. (I didn't have room in my fridge to proof the dough. So I proofed it in my garage which was about 50 degrees. Not quite cold enough. I should have only proofed it 12-14 hours at that temp.) With the other recipes, I didn't have trouble with dough sticking to the Couche. I did a light dusting and the dough got stuck on a couple of loaves. Lesson learned: more flour on Couche with this wetter dough.

I have finally found an authentic recipe that actually turns out EXACTLY the way it’s shown. ❤

I made a baguette peel out of cardboard wrapped in aluminum foil. It's held up pretty well. Double-thick on the cardboard, corrugated like an Amazon box.

Claire you are so bright. Thank you for this! Bread and butter are my desert island food too. Big love to you!

absolutely amazing video, I've watched so many bread videos and this one just explains and demonstrates everything to perfectly, thank you :)

I've done a reasonable amount of home bread-making over the years, read a few books and that but I think I learned the most in the last 30 minutes!

@nytcooking I will literally watch anything and everything with chef Claire. Her videos are always super instructional, easy to follow along, and just super chill vibe. More of her please!!!

Thank you for giving Claire a platform to show her expertise. She is so insanely talented and so good at explaining things.

YESSSS WE NEED MORE CLAIRE VIDEOS PLS

Thankful for subtitles

Love Claire’s knowledgeable instructions.

Best baguette shaping instruction I’ve ever seen. Thank you!

🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 love the details, makes all the diff

You’re great ! Thank you for thorough explanations for each step.

What a wonderfully detailed but also doable and welcoming lesson. I have baked for 40 year as a pro and at home and I think this is a super video. Congrats Claire!

I appreciate how your guys captured the crispy crinkles of the bread.

Tip from a baker: Next time you bake Baguettes or any savory bread, try 2,2-2,4% Salt instead of 2%. Sounds insignificant but makes a huge difference. But decide for yourself if you like the extra salt. 2,4% might be a bit too much for a lot of people but 2,2% is a nice sweetspot in my opinion. Happy baking!

AHHHHHH I LOVE YOU CLAIRE! I'm so happy to see what you'll be doing in the studio kitchen. I literally am going to baking and pastry school because of your tutorials! Thank you!

You can also par bake these and vacuum seal them and freeze them. Once frozen, you can bake them frozen at 450 for about 15-20 min. That way, whenever you want fresh baguette, you can have one in less than 20 minutes.

can't wait to try these! Her croissants video was amazing and I made the best-tasting pastry I've ever had. Thank you Claire!

Love the many details you give about shaping and handling the dough, Claire. So excited to see your one hand stretch and fold method. It’s what I use with my sourdough which makes this a baguette recipe I can handle!

It's called a lean dough. We call the thin piece of wood...a "Facilitator ". This is a great tutorial,.. you're great Claire , and ! NYTimes you're great too.! .

Absolutely Brilliant! More Claire Please!!!

Thank you, you made it look so simple and easy!

Oh my goodness, Clair! I just made these and thank you so much! Your tutorial was perfect. So happy with the results. Making more batches until they are perfect, but they turned out so so well! YUMMY!

You are the best teacher I've seen. Thank you !

Made your baguettes yesterday and today. They came out great for my first time. Crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle, delicious. The ends are not quite pointy enough and the slashes should have been deeper but my family thought they were wonderful. Thanks, so much, for your great recipe and wonderful tutorial.

I adore your videos Claire. So much detail and full of helpful advice. I always feel ready to tackle whatever you’ve made after watching your tutorials. Thank you so very much for all the time and effort you put into creating your videos, I deeply appreciate it. I am making baguettes tomorrow now! 😊 🥖

The most satisfying baking video to watch, led by the most knowledgeable instructor I have seen. Thanks Claire

Great video, very analytical and informative. Thanks Claire ❤

Wonderful!! You are such a good teacher, in every sense, of the word!

Check out FibraMent cooking stones. They custom cut it to your oven size so it covers the whole shelf minus a bit of the edge. Mine was under 100 and its awesome it just stays in there and I clean it with baking soda occasionally. Its fantastic! Enjoyed your video!

I absolutely adore Claire Saffitz!

I am so psyched to give this a try! You are my fave, Claire!

I was just thinking about baking some nice crusty bread for an oyster po' boy. This looks perfect.

Amazing, thank you.

There should be 600000 Likes she makes your show better!!!🎉

They look amazing!

she is SO good at explaining things

Claire, you did it! You have presented me with the PERFECT baguette recipe. I have tried a few in my short 7 months of bread making, but yours has consistently turned out 95% awesome (always room to improve) made 4 time today, 5th tomorrow. They go fast as I love to share. Thank you!

Oh mannn....I'm excited to try this!

Making this week! I have tried making baguettes before and the final shaping is the hardest part for me! Great step by step instructions!

Hi Claire! I've really wanted to get into baking, and I made the baguettes! They came out pretty good - and your explanations were really great. Thanks so much.

Claire explains everything so well, I don’t even thing you need the visuals to know how to do the folds (it does help though😂)

Wow!!Amazing recipe! I am going to make it! Thank you!!!

I just spent $10 for a custom cut (for free) piece of plywood (14x20) from Home Depot. Plus delivery was free is you need to get more HD type stuff, like the popover pan I got as well. A savory popover tutorial would be great, Claire! I'm making these baguettes (using kamut) this weekend, too.

She is such a great teacher

That was incredibly satisfying to watch. As a home cook I want to push myself to make this baguette!

Thanks for this easy to follow, entertaining tutorial. I can't wait to start practicing making baguettes!