Wanted: info on <real> french bread
Nigel Titley
My wife is French, we live in England. She very much misses being able
to buy proper French bread (what they call French bread over here is
just ordinary white "english" bread, made up into the baguette shape).
The characteristics of french bread appear to be:
1) Good crunchy golden crust
2) More open texture
3) Slightly more salty
4) Goes stale very quickly
Given these differences we decided there are several differences in the
manufacturing process. We postulate the following:
1) Soft wheat flour instead of hard wheat
2) Once proved instead of twice
3) More salt
4) Egg glaze on crust
5) Rapid, high temperature (gas mark 9) baking
Attempts to make it have only proved to be a partial success (I can
manage normal white bread without a problem).
The question is, does anyone out there in netland know anything that
might help us?
Mail me and I'll summarise if anything comes of it.
Nigel Titley
..ukc!btnix!titley
Mamaliz
> The characteristics of french bread appear to be:
>
> 1) Good crunchy golden crust
> 2) More open texture
> 3) Slightly more salty
> 4) Goes stale very quickly
>
>
> might help us?
>
it is probably of general interest. I make french bread regularly,
sometimes 8 or 9 loaves a day (depending on number of house guests).
Real bread (let alone real french bread) contains no sugar. Real
French bread contains no fat, or eggs or anything but
flour
yeast
salt
water.
Lizzy's French Bread (derived from Jeannette Seaver's "Jeanette's
Secrets of Everyday Good Cooking")
1/2 cup warm water
2 packages active dry yeast (you can use less if you bake a lot (wild
yeast spores in kitchen) or have time for a slower rising).
2 1/4 cups warm water
7 cups flour (I find that what is marked as "Bread flour" works
better then an all-purpose flour).
2 tablespoons salt
some cornmeal
Amateur's recipe:
Proof yeast in the smaller amount of water (might as well put this in
the bowl you will be mixing the bread in). After the yeast is
proofed (proofed means that you have proved that it is alive -- it
will smell good and look foamy) add the rest of the water and enough
flour to make a really wet sloppy batter (you are not going to stick
your hands in it). Put this in a warm, draft-free place in your
kitchen (cover it with something porous like a dishtowel and keep it
away from the cats). Let it sit for at least 3 hours while it traps
wild yeasts and rises.
Stir this mess down and add the rest of the flour and the salt. You
might have to change the amount of flour...use as much as you need to
make a kneadable dough. I always need more...maybe your flour is
dryer then mine and you will need less.
Knead the dough until you can't stand it anymore (at least 5
minutes. Kneading is fun, if you want to knead more, don't worry.
Let the dough rest while you wash out the bowl you mixed it in and
pick up another bowl of about the same size.
Cut the dough in two pieces, put each piece in a bowl (two bowls
now), cover with the dishtowels again, and put away to rise until
doubled.
Punch down the dough, knead a little bit more and shape. This recipe
supposedly makes 6 short baguettes, but I have never had any luck
with this. I just make two round loaves. Put these loaves on cookie
sheets covered with cornmeal and let rise again (preferably until
doubled, if the time element does not allow doubling, at least an
hour).
Bake at 450 until done (this is different for each shape of loaf, I
usually bake for around 40 minutes).
Expert recipe:
Make a sponge with water, yeast and small amount of flour. Let
sponge rise until you are ready for it. Add rest of flour and salt.
Knead, 2 risings, bake at 450 until done.
Jeff Lichtman
>
> My wife is French, we live in England. She very much misses being able
> to buy proper French bread (what they call French bread over here is
> just ordinary white "english" bread, made up into the baguette shape).
> Attempts to make it have only proved to be a partial success (I can
> manage normal white bread without a problem).
>
> The question is, does anyone out there in netland know anything that
> might help us?
>
The secret is water. French bread should be made with lots of water.
When you bake it, put a pan of hot water on the rack just below the bread.
It also helps to spray or brush water on the loaf a couple of times as
it's baking.
I wouldn't use an egg glaze on the crust. It will tend to make the crust
too soft. Both eggs and milk tend to destroy the texture of French bread.
The *only* liquid that should come in contact with the flour is water.
--
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..."
{amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff
{ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff
e...@mtxinu.uucp
>The secret is water. French bread should be made with lots of water.
>When you bake it, put a pan of hot water on the rack just below the bread.
>It also helps to spray or brush water on the loaf a couple of times as
>it's baking.
How true! Commercial bakeries use steam injection ovens to get
a good crust on the bread.
--
Ed Gould mt Xinu, 2910 Seventh St., Berkeley, CA 94710 USA
{ucbvax,decvax}!mtxinu!ed +1 415 644 0146
"A man of quality is not threatened by a woman of equality."
j.smuga
> The secret is water. French bread should be made with lots of water.
> When you bake it, put a pan of hot water on the rack just below the bread.
>
> I wouldn't use an egg glaze on the crust. It will tend to make the crust
> too soft. Both eggs and milk tend to destroy the texture of French bread.
> The *only* liquid that should come in contact with the flour is water.
Not true. I get a terrific crunchy crust with my egg white glaze: a
frothy egg white mixed with a tbs. of water, brushed on just before
baking in a 400 degree oven, and again after 20 minutes.
> --
> Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
--
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Bob Manson
When making French bread, I place a couple of
small baking pans in the oven as it is being
pre-heated. When I put the bread in the oven, I
throw an ice cube or two in one of the pans to
produce steam. A little while later, I throw some
in the other pan. (It would probably be better to
get a container which would retain the heat better
than the thin aluminum pans, but the method seems
to work for me.)
Bob Manson
University of Toronto
tom...@crin.uucp
>
>The secret is water. French bread should be made with lots of water.
>When you bake it, put a pan of hot water on the rack just below the bread.
>It also helps to spray or brush water on the loaf a couple of times as
>it's baking.
>
(-: Do not forget to use *French* water. To make french bread, everything
must be french, including the water. But seriously, folks, french bread only
makes sense when you at the same time have 'cuisine francaise', french wine,
french cheese, and so on. It is part of a whole. My advice : if you want to
eat french bread, come and live in France! :-)
--
--- Karl Tombre @ CRIN (Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Nancy)
UUCP: ...!vmucnam!crin!tombre or ...!inria!crin!tombre
COSAC: crin/tombre
POST: Karl Tombre, CRIN, B.P. 239, 54506 VANDOEUVRE CEDEX, France
Les plus desesperes sont les chants les plus beaux,
Et j'en sais d'immortels qui sont de purs sanglots.
Alfred de Musset.
Irene Orr
on bought bread is made by injecting steam into the oven early
in the baking process (see Elizabeth David). Your best bet is
an Italian baker locally or a specialist baker in London.
E. David recommends baking the bread at a high temperature in an
enclosed space for a good crust - you put the bread on a baking
sheet and invert a large, heat-proof container over the bread
for the first 20 mins or so. This is only partially successful,
though. I can't recall the name of her bokk, but it's in Penguin
paperback & features the word "bread" in the title,
Irene Orr
(irene@epistemi)
Margot Flowers
crust, Julia Child on one of her shows said to use a (clean, new)
garden sprayer/atomizer filled with water to open the oven and spray
water mist into the oven every N minutes. I don't remember what N was.
You could also used plant mister I suppose.
pe...@stc.uucp
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I tried the steam trick for the first time over the weekend
with a batch of granary rolls.
I put a couple of cake tins half-full of boiled water
in the oven and got a pretty good crust. This sounds like
less trouble than the spray method. (I'm a *lazy* baker!)
--
Peter Kendell <pe...@stc.UUCP>
...!mcvax!ukc!stc!pete
"We're standing here, exposing ourselves.
We are showroom dummies!"