French Bread

baking in the oven.

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (SAF instant is wonderful!)
1/3 cup warm water
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 lb. (~ 3.5 cups) flour (i like freshly milled Montana Gold, it’s not as gritty as regular whole wheat and rises almost as high as regular white)
1 tablespoon rye flour
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
approx. 1 cup cold water

In a small bowl, sprinkle yeast over warm water along with sugar. Stir briefly to mix and let stand until bubbly, 5-10 minutes. In a large bowl, put flours and salt. Add cold water to yeast mixture, mix well, and add to the flour. Knead in the bowl until combined, adding more water if necessary, then transfer to lightly floured (or oiled) counter or other flat kneading surface. Continue to knead until dough is smooth, about 15-25 minutes by hand. Form into a ball. [Of course, you can make this in a food processor or stand mixer. After you proof the yeast, just add the rest of the ingredients and turn the machine on, using the dough hook. On a regular Kitchenaid don't use any whole grain. If you have a Bosch or an Electrolux then those should be able to handle heavier dough, i.e., whole wheat. I killed 2 KAs trying to knead whole wheat in them -- I've learned my lesson:(. Anyway, knead the dough until smooth and elastic, about 15 minutes in a regular KA, 6-8 minutes in a Bosch, Electrolux or a Hobart (the original Kitchenaid). ] Return dough to bowl (make sure your bowl is big enough to accommodate the dough doubling or tripling in volume). Cover with plastic wrap or clean kitchen towel and set in a warm place. About 75-85 degrees F is best. Your oven, turned off but with the oven light on, is a great place to let dough rise. If you want to hurry the process along, you can also turn your oven on to the lowest setting (mine goes down to 170 degrees F — oh how i wish for a Miele!) for 2 minutes then turn it off — do this before you mix the dough, and leave the oven door closed. Let the dough rise for about an hour, until it’s about 1 1/2 times its original volume. Transfer it back to the work surface and shape it roughly into a rectangle approx. 14 inch long. Fold 1/3 down and fold the lower third up (kinda like a brochure). Press again to a 14-inch long rectangle and repeat folding. Return to bowl and let rise again, covered, about 1 1/2 hours or until 3 times its original volume. The time here is approximate as your kitchen’s conditions will be different from mine. What’s important is the amount of rise. I once made a recipe that told me the dough should double in 2 hours, but I had to wait 6 hours because my kitchen was a tad cold, it was the middle of winter.

I’d post here on how to form the dough, but I’ve found this link for you instead (lazy). Their ingredients and proportions are different from mine, but with my recipe you should be able to form 3 18-inch baguettes, 2 fat loaves, 2 round loaves, or 12 french rolls. After shaping the loaves/rolls, let rise to more than double again, preferably on the peel (dusted with cornmeal or semolina) that you’re going to be using. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. My oven is lined all the time with quarry tiles, available at Home Depot for around 25-60 cents each. Or you can use a baking stone. (Using tiles/stone simulates the brick oven of the middle ages — nothing can beat brick-oven-baked pizza and loaves!) I bake my loaves directly on these. Using the peel slide the loaves/rolls in one swift motion onto the tiles/stone. Spray the oven walls with water (or have an empty ovenproof pan at the bottom and pour water into it carefully). This will create the steam that is necessary for your french bread to develop a beautiful crust. Your loaves/rolls are done when the core registers 200 degrees F on a thermometer. About 30 minutes for long and round loaves (if you made really large loaves lower heat to 375 degrees F after around 20 minutes). 25 minutes or so for rolls.

E-mail me with questions at dragons6 at stormloader dot com. I’m not a french bread expert by any means but I’ll be happy to share whatever I know.

There are many little tips and tricks for making french bread and sourdoughs successfully, and there is a wealth of information on the ‘net. I’ll do another post on Internet sources and books one of these days, but for now I’ll end this post with these two tips:

The most useful tip I learned last year was to oil my kneading board as opposed to flouring it. It helped me tremendously in keeping the dough nice and supple and not too dense. The danger with flouring the board is that you may be adding more flour than is necessary, and you’ll get a heavy loaf.

The one other thing that I find most important about working with bread is learning exactly what a well-kneaded bread feels like. Until you work with your hands and not a stand mixer you won’t really “get to know” the dough. I was forced to go back to hand-kneading after killing my KA. my DLX spoils me now but handkneading during the months when I didn’t have a mixer taught me a lot so that my mistakes are fewer now. There will still be mistakes, as breadbaking is an art and therefore subject to so many varying factors — you, the temperature, humidity, the quality of the water and the flour and the yeast, etc., but at least you’ll know when YOUR job is done and when it’s time to let nature take over.