There are three ways to make a baguette at home. Yeasted, poolish, and sourdough. They all end up looking like the same loaf, but the journeys are completely different. In this video I walk you through all three. Who each one is for, when it makes sense to pick which path, and the three things that matter more than the recipe itself. If you've ever stood in your kitchen wondering which baguette you should actually start with, this is the breakdown you've been looking for. Pick yours for this weekend's bake-along: 🥖 No starter? Start here. https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/french-bread-baguette?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share 🥖 Want bakery flavor without managing a starter? https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/classic-poolish-baguette?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share 🥖 Active starter ready to go? https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/sourdough-baguettes?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share We've been climbing this staircase for three weeks. Couche on the ciabatta. Poolish on the ciabatta. Now scoring and the roll-out shape on the baguettes. Nothing wasted. Watch the video. Pick your path. Drop questions before you bake. Easier to fix dough than crust. Perfection is not required. Progress is. Come bake with us. — Henry ⭐🔥

This weekend we're going to baguettes. And there's a reason we're getting to them now. Look at what we've done the past two weeks. We learned the couche on ciabatta. We built a poolish for that same ciabatta and watched what an overnight pre-ferment does to flavor and extensibility. Both of those skills carry straight over to baguettes. We're not learning new things this weekend. We're putting the same tools to work in a new shape. That's the method. Each bake builds on the last one. Nothing wasted. Three recipes in the Recipe Pantry. Pick the one that matches where you are. 🥖 New to baguettes? Start here. Classic French Bread Baguette — four ingredients, overnight cold ferment, 72% hydration. Two loaves, cleanest entry point in the pantry. No pre-ferment, no starter. Just dough, time, and shape. https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/french-bread-baguette?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share 🥖 Liked the poolish ciabatta? Run it back. Classic Poolish Baguette — same poolish you just built, in a new shape. 12 to 16 hour pre-ferment, 75% hydration, three baguettes. If you nailed the ciabatta, you already know how this dough is going to feel. https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/classic-poolish-baguette?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share 🥖 Sourdough bakers, this one's yours. Sourdough Baguettes — overnight levain, 75% hydration, three baguettes at 265g. Same shaping rhythm we practiced on the ciabatta couche. https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/sourdough-baguettes?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share

I just dropped a new video walking through the three baguette paths. Yeasted. Poolish. Sourdough. Same shape. Three completely different stories. If you've been wondering which one to bake this weekend, watch this first. It'll save you from picking wrong. Here's the short version of what's in it. The baguette isn't really one bread. It's three breads sharing a shape. And the skills stack on top of each other. Yeasted teaches you the shape and the score. Poolish teaches you what time and pre-fermentation do to dough. Sourdough teaches you to read the wild yeast. You don't have to walk it in that order. But the climb's a whole lot easier when you take it one step at a time. Three things stay the same no matter which one you pick: 1. The shape. A 14 to 16-inch roll, tapered at the ends. 2. The score. Three or four overlapping cuts at a 30 to 45-degree angle. 3. The steam. The crust sets in the first 10 minutes. Without steam, your loaf can't expand. What changes is your relationship with time. That's really the choice you're making when you pick a recipe. Not a different bread. A different level of time and dough management. Pick yours for this weekend's bake-along: 🥖 No starter? Start here. https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/french-bread-baguette?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share 🥖 Want bakery-level flavor without managing a starter? https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/classic-poolish-baguette?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share 🥖 Active starter ready to go? https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/sourdough-baguettes?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share

Good morning, bakers. This is our home base for today. 🔥 Two versions, same bread, same 80% hydration, no shaping, no scoring, all flavor: 👉 Yeasted with Poolish: pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/rustic-italian-ciabatta 👉 Sourdough with Levain: pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/sourdough-italian-ciabatta (Swap these for the trackable community links from the recipe card share button.) 🧭 How to use this thread: 📸 Post your poolish or levain photo first thing. Show me what you woke up to. 💬 Drop questions in the comments as you go. Mixing, fermentolyse, coil folds, bulk rise, divide and cut, final proof, bake. Every stage. I’ll be in here all day. 🏷️ Tag your photos with the stage so we can all follow along.“Poolish ready,” “Coil fold #2,” “Just divided,” “In the oven,” “Crumb shot.” ⚠️ A few reminders before you start: 👀 Watch the dough, not the clock. 50 to 70% rise on bulk, not doubled. Doubled means overproofed, and ciabatta will go flat on you. 💧 Wet hands and a wet bench scraper are your best friends today. Don’t add flour to a wet dough. Trust it. 🎥 The coil fold video I posted yesterday is pinned. Watch it once before your first fold if you’ve never done one. 🔥 Steam matters. Cast iron skillet of hot water on the bottom rack, or a Brod & Taylor dome — either works. Don’t skip it. 💡 If your bake doesn’t come out picture-perfect, post it anyway. We learn more from honest bakes than from highlight reels. 🚀 Let’s go. Drop your starting photos below. Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥

🍞 THIS SATURDAY: Rustic Italian Ciabatta After babka week nearly broke the comment counter and marbling bread had everyone turning dough into art, we're going back to basics. Sort of. This Saturday we're baking a proper Rustic Italian Ciabatta. Lean dough, 80% hydration, built on an overnight poolish. No shaping. No scoring. Just a wet, bubbly dough that gets poured onto a floured counter, cut in half, and baked into two crackly-crusted slippers with the kind of open, honeycomb crumb that makes olive oil sing. Here's why this one matters: It teaches hydration confidence. If 80% hydration makes you nervous, this is exactly the dough you need to bake. You can't hurt it by treating it gently. You can only hurt it by over-handling. It teaches preferments. The poolish is 5 minutes of work Friday night and it does 80% of the flavor work while you sleep. Once you understand what a poolish does for ciabatta, you'll start using them in other breads too. It teaches minimal intervention. Every week we've been talking about building tension, scoring, shaping, stretching. Ciabatta is the counterpoint. Sometimes the best shaping is no shaping at all. Three paths to pick from: (check the toggle in the recipe) 🥖 Yeasted with Poolish (classic, beginner-friendly) 🌾 Sourdough with Levain (for my starter folks) 🧀 Inclusions welcome (olives, roasted garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, rosemary, whatever you've got) Recipe is in the Recipe Pantry now. Friday night we mix the poolish. Saturday morning we bake. https://skoo.ly/rustic-ciabatta I'll be in the kitchen and in the thread all day. Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥