Bread and Circuses (without the circuses)

A few days ago I decided to try to to make something approximating French bread based on a recipe I found in the Joy of Cooking. While the result was quite edible, it really wasn't quite the type of bread I was trying to bake. Consequently, I thought that the internet might be able to help me come up with a recipe that was a little closer to what it was that I was looking for.

After examining a few websites/video/recipes I stumbled upon one that gave ten tips to make one's bread a little more like what I was hoping to make. After quickly skimming through the ten tips, most of which made a great deal of sense, I decided that I would have to make another few batches of bread, but this time with the advantage of having a little more knowledge. What I found most shocking about all of my reading, including the original Joy of Cooking recipe, is that basic French bread can quite effectively be made with basically just flour, water, and yeast. Going into this I really imagined that there were at least a few more ingredients involved.

One of the key differences in the new approach was to let the flour sit in the water before kneading so that the amount of kneading can be reduced. In the two batches I have made this seems to make a bit of a difference. After about 20 minutes of sitting in the water, some of the flour has started to make the transition to the appropriate texture. Anyway, the result is a dough that needs very little kneading, which is a little different than suggested by the Joy of Cooking.

Another suggestion was to have very wet, or slack, dough. This was quite easy to achieve as it simply required a slight modification of the water to flour ratio. The downside of this is that the dough is a fair bit stickier and a little more difficult to handle. They also suggested that instead of punching the dough and kneading it aggressively once it has risen to instead fold it on a floured surface and allow it to rise again.

As you can see, in my first batch the bread rose rather aggressively and eventually fused together. While this wasn't much of a problem from the flavour perspective, it was a bit of a weak showing on the aesthetic perspective. That being said, I was quite satisfied with the texture and density of the bread.





The large gaps are what I was going for, so I was pleased to find that my bread had them. Such gaps are obviously a matter of taste, some people might not find them so desirable.



The second batch likely wasn't quite as slack. Also, I made the loaves a little smaller and placed them further apart on the pans. The result is that they look a little more like traditional baguettes. It seems that this batch was much denser and had a quite a different texture. Presumably some of this difference is explained by the amount of time I allowed each batch to rise.





Though I will likely take at least two or three days away from this type of bread, I imagine that I will try to bake at least one more batch by the end of the week, just to see if I can improve my consistency and product.