Classic French Bread

Hello again, friends!  I hope you're doing well.  I am ready for spring.  We just keep getting snow.  Yesterday it got up to 48 degrees and almost all our snow melted, and then this morning it was snowing again, and the ground is once again covered.  Pippin is excited about it though, which makes it a little more tolerable.  The snow is a little less wearisome when you can watch your puppy try to snap the flakes out of the air.

But it's still cold and damp.  So I'm making some French bread today to warm up the house.  It's my wonderful mother's recipe with a few minor adjustments.   Shout out to my mom:  she always let me help her in the kitchen when I was growing up, and I credit my love of baking (and any talents related to such) to her.   Hi, Mom!

My mom bakes a great variety of delightful treats, but bread was always a staple.  I remember when I was in about first grade, one of my friends was talking about the bread machine that her mom had just gotten, and my reaction was "who needs a machine to make bread?" because I had often watched my mom mix up the dough and knead it by hand, and the only machine she ever used was the oven, but I didn't think my friend was dumb enough to not know the word "oven."

I don't recommend trying this in a bread machine for two reasons:  1) it won't be shaped like French bread.  That doesn't really matter, it's just not French bread.  2) this recipe makes two big loaves, and I think it would be too much for your machine.  But if you try it, send me pictures; I think it would be funny.

You can also knead it with a dough hook on your stand mixer, but I personally love kneading the dough by hand.  It's very relaxing and gives you a good feel for how the dough is coming along.  

The snow is really piling up, so let's get into something warm and lovely:

Gather your lovely ingredients: Flour, milk, yeast, sugar, salt, oil, gluten, and water (not pictured).  A small note:  I have both bread flour and whole wheat white flour here and did a mix of the two, but there is room for adjustment here.  You can do all bread flour, all all-purpose flour, etc.  I like the flavor of the wheat bread, but it makes for a pretty heavy, stiff dough, so mixing it with bread flour helps balance it out. 

Next is the trickiest part:  the yeast.  Mix the warm milk, warm water, and sugar, and then dissolve your yeast into this.   The problem is in the word "warm."  The mixture needs to be warm enough to activate the yeast, but not so hot as to kill it.  Not being yeast myself, it took me a while to figure this out.  What I thought was "warm" never seemed warm enough to make anything happen, but then I realized that in cooking, "hot" water is often closer to boiling, which is pretty damn hot, so in cooking, warm must be warmer than normal warm.  A good guide is bath water.  But don't use actual bathwater, that's gross.   If the water is a temperature you would want to hang out it, yeast probably will too.  If it's hotter or colder than anything you would want to sit in for 15 minutes, the yeast probably feels the same way. 

Let it activate for about ten minutes.  It should start to bubble at this point, but if it doesn't, don't sweat it.  Mine didn't bubble either, but it doesn't necessarily mean your yeast is dead.  Also, my house was a little cold (see earlier paragraph about snow), so I put my bowl of yeast-milk inside a slightly bigger bowl that had some more warm water in it.  This is not necessary, and I'm not sure it helped insulate like I intended.   But that's why my bowls are doubled up in later pictures.  I'm not just crazy.

After the ten minutes, dump in your flour, salt, oil, and gluten.   Then dive in with your hands and mix it all up.  A couple words about gluten:  Gluten has been getting a bad name lately, but I love gluten.  It helps give bread a nice chewiness, and with wheat flour like used here, it helps it raise better.  I understand there are people with serious health issues like Celiac's that makes them unable to process gluten, and that's unfortunate.  However, the people who just think going gluten-free is healthy because of the media buzz drive me crazy.  Don't be those people.  

Enough ranting. When you've mixed up the flour and other goodies in the bowl to the point where they stick together in a big clumpy ball, put it on a lightly floured surface (i.e. countertop) and knead it.  This is my favorite part.  You really get a feel for how the texture of the bread will turn out.  The more refined your flour is, the smoother the dough will be, but after 6 minutes of kneading, the dough will be thoroughly mixed, so don't worry about a few lumps.

Put the dough ball back in your bowl (or another bowl) and put it somewhere warm.  If your house is warm, just put a clean dish towel over it to let it rise.  If you think your house might not be warm enough, try this fancy trick that my mama taught me:

No, don't actually microwave it.  That's a metal bowl, you nut! The trick here is that the light under the microwave is on (see the orangey glow?).  When this is on, the floor of the microwave gets a little warm from the bulb, and the microwave turns into a pretty good proofing box.  This is where you find out if your yeast really was good.  

See? It grew! It took three hours, but it grew! Isn't it pretty?  Now, punch it down, knead it a little more if you wish, but not much, and cut it in half so that your loaves are equal in size.

And form them into loaf shapes.  That one looks a little... funny.  Just ignore it please.  Thanks!

You don't have to put them on parchment paper.  They will do just fine without it, actually.

Let it raise again for another half hour to an hour.  While this is going on, get your oven ready.  To make a nice hard crust, we will need the help of water.  The first step is to get another pan and put it in your oven.  Do this while the oven is still cold and pour water into the pan (you can fill the pan and then put it in the oven if you're more coordinated than I am, but when I tried this, I sloshed a lot of water all over my kitchen floor.  It's much easier to put an empty pan in the cold oven and then use a pitcher to pour water into the pan).  Once your pan of water is in place, start the oven.  It's okay if your bread isn't ready when the oven says it's preheated.  The longer the water is in the hot oven, the steamier it will be, and the better your crust will be.

When you're happy with the steaminess of your oven and your bread is nice and puffy again, put it in!  For an even crispier crust, brush water on the bread.  It's best to be able to dip it into boiling water (like bagels), but I don't have the means to make that happen, so I just brushed the water on. 

If you chose to use parchment paper and the water trick, you might find that some of the edges are a little soggy even after the specified cooking time.  If this is the case, take the loaves off the parchment paper and stick them back into the oven, right onto the rack.  This also helps browning if your loaves are not quite as browned as you want.  

So these aren't the prettiest loaves I've ever made, but they sure smelled delicious.  This bread is good all the time, but it's best when it's right out of the oven with a little butter on it.  Mmmmm.....

French Bread

1 cup milk (warm)

3/4 cup warm water

1 packet yeast (or 1 teaspoon)

1 tablespoon oil

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons sugar

5 to 5 1/2 cups Flour

8 teaspoons Gluten

Heat milk by microwaving for approximately 45 seconds.  Mix with warm water and sugar in a large bowl and dissolve yeast in mixture.  Allow to activate for about 10 minutes.   Stir in oil, salt, gluten and flour.  Mix until a dough forms and knead for 6-8 minutes.  Let rise for 2-3 hours in a warm place.  Punch dough down and roll into loaves and allow to raise again for another 30 minutes to an hour.

Place a pan of water into your cold oven and then preheat to 400 degrees.  Before you put the loaves in the oven, dip them in water (or sprinkle/brush water over them).   The water helps form a nice crust.  Bake for 25 minutes.