French Bread for Baguettes & Other Loaves

A simple French bread, such as a baguette, isn’t difficult to prepare, but the dough needs long rests and rising time to develop flavor. The work of preparing the dough is easy and not very time consuming, but you have to plan on starting early and making it on a day when you’ll be home for most of the day to monitor the risings of the dough. Shaping variations are given at the end of the recipe so you’ll be able to produce a variety of different breads from this one easy-to-prepare dough.<