Sourdough Baguettes 2.0

8/24/2026

There was a time, not all that long ago - despite what my children say — when finding a recipe required actual detective work. You didn't simply type "best sourdough baguette recipe" into a search bar while standing in your kitchen wearing pajama pants and one oven mitt. Oh no. You embarked on a culinary treasure hunt that involved a deep dive into century old cookbooks stored at the back of the very deepest of kitchen cabinets. 😅

My cookbook collection is vast and it contains a church fundraiser cookbook from every church we've ever visited, the Better Homes & Gardens binder I got for a wedding gift and an extensive collection of Williams Sonoma cookbooks. When I first started baking bread, I would spend hours flipping through stained page after stained page of these books hoping someone, somewhere, had cracked the code for the perfect crusty baguette.📖

If all that failed to produce a recipe that I thought would work, it was time to ask mom. This is how that conversation usually went:
Me: "How much flour?"
Mom: "Oh... enough."
Me: "How long do I knead it?"
Mom: "Until it feels right."
Me: "How do I know when it feels right?"
Mom: "You'll know." 😂

Then there were the handwritten recipe cards. Some stained with vanilla. Some with mysterious grease spots that suggested the recipe had survived at least one Thanksgiving disaster. And measurements were often optional. Recipes with only half of the instructions assumed that I inherited generations of baking intuition.🤷🏻‍♀️😬

Fast forward to today when the internet has become every baker's overly enthusiastic best friend. If I want to bake a sourdough baguette - I have approximately 4.7 million people ready to show me how to do it. There are step-by-step photos, slow-motion videos of dough stretching like mozzarella in a pizza commercial, charts explaining hydration percentages, diagrams on scoring and articles comparing Dutch ovens, baking steels, pizza stones, lava rocks, steam trays and what appears to be equipment borrowed from NASA.🥖

Why does my baguette have one giant hole the size of Delaware? There's an online forum dedicated entirely to discussing it. When I need emotional support because my dough looks more like pancake batter than bread - complete strangers will message me to let me know that my starter just needs another feeding along with some reassuring words of encouragement.

Honestly, it's magnificent. And somehow in the middle of this digital buffet of information, I found the recipe that finally convinced me that I too, could produce a bakery-worthy sourdough baguette. Thank you Amybakesbread.com.😉

Fortunately, baguettes are incredibly forgiving. They don't care if your scoring belongs in an art museum. Once they hit a blazing hot oven with plenty of steam, they puff proudly into golden loaves with crackling crusts that sing as they cool. That sound—that tiny chorus of crackles—it truly is one of life's greatest sounds.

The internet tells me that I should let sourdough cool for an hour before slicing but honestly, cutting into one while it's still warm to discover an airy, chewy interior with glossy pockets is amazing.😋 It's rustic. It's beautiful. It's also astonishingly satisfying to realize that what once required generations of family wisdom, dozens of cookbooks and at least two phone calls to Grandma can now be learned from a recipe on your phone while your starter bubbles happily beside your morning coffee.

Of course, I wouldn't trade those conversations with my mom or my grandmother for anything. Recipes were never just about ingredients. They were stories. They were family history. They were passed along with reminders to "use the good butter," directions to "fold" ingredients and tips on how to knead the dough "just enough."

The internet may have made recipes wonderfully accessible, but mom still wins when it comes to seasoning every loaf with laughter, encouragement and the occasional unsolicited life advice. So bake the baguette. Bookmark the recipe. Watch the video. Read the comments. But every now and then, call someone who's been baking longer than you've been alive.❤️

Sourdough Baguettes 2.0
Levain
65 grams active sourdough starter
65 grams water
65 grams all purpose flour

Autolyse
1000 grams all purpose flour
625 grams water

Baguette Dough
180 grams active levain
50 grams water
1 Tablespoon salt

Mix together sourdough starter, flour and water. Set in a warm place for 3-4 hours until bubbly, active and doubled.

1 hour before levain is ready, mix together 1000 grams flour and 625 grams water. Cover and let rest 1 hour.

Add 180 grams of ripe levain on top of the autolysed dough. Add reserved water and salt.

Mix together in stand mixer for 2-3 minutes. Place into a large bowl.

Perform 3 sets of stretch and folds over the first 90 minutes. Every 30 minutes, stretch and fold dough with wet hands.

Cover and let dough rest in a warm place for 1.5 hours.

Cover and refrigerate dough 12-24 hours. 18 hours is ideal.

Separate cold dough into 6 equal pieces, around 300 grams each.

Roll each into a ball.

Let balls rest on counter, uncovered for 45 minutes.

Stretch each ball into a rectangle.

Take one of the 6 pieces of dough and flip it over. Fold bottom half of the dough up to the middle and press to seal. Fold top half down to the middle and press to seal.

Pull the top edge of the dough to the middle and press and seal to create a cylinder shape. Pinch and close seam tightly to seal.

Roll baguette starting with middle out to achieve baguette shape with tapered ends.

Place baguette in floured couche. Repeat with remaining baguettes. I put each baguette on a piece of parchment to make it easier to get them in and out of the oven.