French Bread
A lean, crackling-crusted loaf — flour, water, salt, and yeast, and nothing to hide behind.
What's going on here
Lean dough — no fat, no sugar, no dairy — has nowhere to hide a bad rise or a rushed ferment, which is exactly why it rewards technique so directly. With nothing coating the flour to slow water absorption, gluten develops fast and strong, giving the open, chewy crumb this bread is known for; the trade-off is that the same lack of fat means the crust dries and hardens readily, and it's the source of the crackle. That crust needs steam in the first ten minutes of baking, generated here with a pan of water in the oven, because dry heat sets the crust too early and prevents the dough from fully expanding — a bread that can't expand tears randomly instead of splitting cleanly along its scored lines. The diagonal slashes aren't decoration: they're a deliberate weak point that controls where the loaf splits as it springs, so the crust opens predictably rather than blowing out wherever it's thinnest.
Ingredients
Dough
- 2 cupsWarm water
- 1 2/3 tspYeast
Instant/quick-rise: stir straight into the dry ingredients, no proofing needed.
- 1 tspGranulated sugar
- 2 1/2 tspSalt
- 5 1/2 cupsAll-purpose or bread flour
Finish
- 2 tbspCornmeal, for the pan(optional)
Instructions
Dough
- Stir the yeast and sugar into the warm water and let stand until foamy.
- Stir in the salt, then work in the flour a cup at a time until a shaggy dough forms.
- Knead 10 minutes until smooth, elastic, and just slightly tacky.
Tip: Lean dough shows underkneading immediately — it'll tear rather than stretch. Keep going until a small piece stretches thin enough to see light through without ripping.
Rise
- Cover and let rise until doubled.
Shape
- Divide in two, shape each half into a long baguette-style loaf, and place on a cornmeal-dusted sheet. Cover and let rise until puffy.
Bake
- Slash the tops diagonally 3–4 times with a sharp blade, put a pan of hot water on the oven's bottom rack, and bake at 220°C (425°F).
Tip: The steam pan is what gives this loaf its crust. Skip it and the crust sets too fast for the dough to fully spring.
Cool
- Cool on a rack at least 20 minutes — the crust is still crisping as it cools.
Claude Score
Well-built recipe. Sound ratios and real flavor development.
- Ratio soundness25% of total
- 92
- Flavor development25% of total
- 84
- Texture control20% of total
- 90
- Reliability20% of total
- 82
- Pantry accessibility10% of total
- 96
How well the formula holds up against known working ratios.
Whether the method builds flavor or merely combines ingredients.
How deliberately moisture, gluten, starch, and fat are controlled.
How much margin for error the recipe leaves a home cook.
Whether you can make it from staples, right now, with normal gear.
A correctly built lean dough with a legitimate reason for every technique — the steam and the scoring are both solving real problems. Reliability is honest: lean dough shows every mistake.
Scored on the science of cooking — ratios, flavour development, texture control, how forgiving the method is, and whether you can make it from what's in the cupboard. Not a measure of how much you'll like it.
Tips for this recipe
Scoring at an angle
A blade held at about 30 degrees to the dough, rather than straight down, lifts a flap as it cuts, which is what gives the classic ear along the slash.
Crust went soft overnight
Lean bread has no fat to slow moisture loss either way, so it stales fast and picks up ambient humidity easily. Store cut-side down on a board rather than bagged, and re-crisp in a hot oven for a few minutes before serving.