French Bread Lab
Baguettes and French loaves: water, salt, yeast and the little sugar or fat some add.
138 recipes from 66 sites, each reduced to grams and written as baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient per 100 g of flour, so a small recipe and a double batch line up. Below: the typical loaf, how far recipes stray from it, and a page for every recipe with a link to the original.
Recipes
138
from 66 sites
Typical flour
500 g
about 4 cups
Oven
450°F
230°C · median of 114
Bake time
22 min
most 20 to 28 min
The median of all 138 recipes for each ingredient, scaled to 500 g of flour. No single recipe is exactly this: each line is the middle of its own distribution. “Most recipes” means the middle half, from the 25th to the 75th percentile.
| Ingredient | Grams |
|---|---|
| FlourThe scale for everything else | 500 gabout 4 cups |
| WaterMost recipes use 300 to 355 g | 335 gabout 1 1/3 cups |
| SaltMost recipes use 9 to 11 g | 10 g |
| YeastMost recipes use 1.5 to 7 g | 4 g |
| Sugar71% use none; the rest mostly 4.5 to 13 g | none |
| Fat78% use none; the rest mostly 15 to 28 g | none |
Bake450°F (230°C) for about 22 minutes.
Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, butter or oil 225 g, milk and other liquids 240 g.
Each dot is a recipe, placed by grams of the ingredient per 100 g of flour (100% would be as much as the flour). The shaded band is the middle half of recipes and the line is the median.
median 67% · most 60 to 71%
Around 65 to 75% for a baguette; wetter doughs give a more open crumb and a thinner, crisper crust.
range 50 to 84%
median 2% · most 1.7 to 2.1%
About 2% of the flour.
range 1 to 3%
median 0.8% · most 0.3 to 1.4%
Less yeast and a longer or overnight rise builds flavor; weeknight loaves use more.
range 0 to 3.1% · 5% use none
median 0% · 71% use none
A true baguette has none; American French bread often adds a little.
range 0 to 5.5% · those that use some, mostly 0.9 to 2.6%
median 0% · 78% use none
Traditional French bread uses none; a little oil or butter softens the crumb.
range 0 to 8% · those that use some, mostly 3 to 5.5%
Measured by how far apart the 25th and 75th percentile recipes are. The widest gaps are where the choice of recipe matters most.
Recipes agree most on water and salt: water 60 to 71%, salt 1.7 to 2.1% for the middle half.
126 of the recipes come in 4 languages with enough of each to compare: English 58, French 31, German 29, Spanish 8.
No language differs from English on any ingredient by more than chance would explain.
Every language, ingredient by ingredient →English recipes whose titles use a word, against the ones that do not. What recipe writers do when they pick the word, not proof that it makes the texture.
Recipes with “baguettes” in the title: most use no sugar (90% vs 47%); less yeast (0.3% vs 1.3%).
“baguettes” (22)the rest (36)middle half of all
Sugar · share using anyrecipes with baguettes in the title 9% vs the rest 52%
Yeastrecipes with baguettes in the title 0.3% vs the rest 1.3%
30 French bread recipes have 50 or more reader ratings. A rating count says how many people rated a page, which follows its traffic more than its quality. Against the other 108, medians per 100 g of flour, compared within each language:
On no ingredient do the most-reviewed recipes differ from the rest by more than chance would explain.
50+ ratings (30)the rest (108)middle half of all
Waterthe most-reviewed recipes 65% vs the rest 67%
Saltthe most-reviewed recipes 2% vs the rest 2%
Yeastthe most-reviewed recipes 0.6% vs the rest 1%
Sugarthe most-reviewed recipes 0% vs the rest 0%
Fatthe most-reviewed recipes 0% vs the rest 0%
114 of 138 recipes state an oven temperature, and 31% of those bake at 475°F (245°C). The middle half bake at 425 to 475°F. The other 24 do not say.
124 recipes state a bake time. Taking the middle of any stated range (“55 to 65 minutes” counts as 60), the median is 22 minutes and the middle half bake 20 to 28 minutes.
The single most common pairing is 475°F for 20 to 25 minutes, with 14 of the 109 recipes that state both.
Nearest the median on every ingredient at once.
In 7 languages: English 58, French 31, German 29, Spanish 8, Portuguese 4, Italian 4, Dutch 4. Lines in other languages are read in their own units and words, and each recipe page links to the original. 66 sites in all. No site contributes more than 12 recipes.
Every ingredient line is converted to grams and grouped (butter and oil count as fat; white, brown and liquid sweeteners as sugar), then divided by the flour weight. That baker's percentage is the only comparison that holds across recipes of different sizes.
95% of the 904 ingredient lines got a weight. 63% of those weights were printed by the source; the rest were converted from cups and spoons with standard densities, so treat single recipes as close, not exact. Frosting, glaze, streusel and other toppings are listed on each recipe page but left out of the percentages.
A recipe outside the plausible range for any ingredient is left out rather than allowed to stretch every chart; it is usually a different dish with the same name or a misread line. Of the pages fetched, 313 were left out: 147 with no flour, or none that could be weighed, 105 outside the plausible range on some ingredient (water 63, salt 22, yeast 14, fat 6), 33 with a title that names a different dish, 13 too many lines without an amount, 13 duplicates of other pages, and 2 a listing page, not a recipe page.
Every recipe page links to the original, which is where the method is. Recipe Lab does not republish instructions or photos.