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French Bread

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Ingredients
  

  • 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast SAF Instant is wonderful!
  • 1/3 cup warm water
  • 1/4 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 lb (approx 3.5 cups) flour see note
  • 1 tablespoon rye flour
  • 2 1./4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 cup cold water more or less

Instructions
 

  • 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.
  • 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.

Forming the dough:

  • 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.

Baking:

  • Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F.
  • 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.

Notes

Re flour: I like freshly milled Montana Gold, it's not as gritty as regular whole wheat and rises almost as high as regular white.
Re kneading with a machine: 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). 
Re waiting for the dough to rise: 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.
Re baking: 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.
 
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