The French Bread recipe is very similar to the Lean Bread, more salt and less water. There is also some slight variations in the technique. Mixing starts the same, this time using the dough hook instead of the paddle, and it worked much better. Then he wants us to do some hand kneading...I am thinking "I have a fancy mixer why do I need to get my hands all gummed up?". OK...so I was wrong, not about the gummy hands...that is definitely something to work on. Also the dough sticking to the table, but it really was nice to work the dough...with my gummy hands even.
Another interesting thing with this recipe...for some reason the last step reads a lot clearer to me...it says if you aren't going to bake everything at once divide it now and stick it in the fridge overnight. This actually was a bit of a hiccup because first of all I only have one glass bowl that I figured to be big enough to hold the doubled up dough. So I put half of it in a stainless steel mixing bowl. Next I didn't have room on the shelf for both bowls, so the stainless bowl went in the crisper. This morning it appeared that the dough in the glass bowl was significantly bigger than the metal bowl. Either of these variations could have caused the difference or it could be there was no difference and not being able to see into the bowl from the side distorted things. Also I just eyeballed "half" so it is possible that there was just less dough in the metal bowl. I am not really stressing about it, but I am looking into getting two matching "fermentation vessels".
The first loaf...So far so good, figured I should start with the "smaller" batch. Since my last entry I did some more reading on the shaping process and I think I managed something very close to a batard (pretend there is a caret thingy over the "a"). All of my early attempts were cooked on a sheet pan, but these recipes are meant to be "hearth baked" so when I made the Lean Bread I baked them on a stone. With those loaves I learned that I could proof the dough on parchment paper, then put it straight into the oven on the parchment. I also learned that after a few minutes it is a good idea to take the parchment out of the oven...
Anyway...I put my "batard" on the parchment and let it proof for the suggested 90 minutes. Much better job scoring this time...and into the oven...lower the temp from the 550 degree preheat to 450...and we are good. Wait I am forgetting something...oh yeah steam! Part of the "hearth baking" thing is to have some steam going for the first few minutes the bread is in the oven...it's a crust thing. So I scramble and get some water into the "steamer"...aka a cast iron skillet on the rack under the stone. Remove the parchment...spin the loaf...golden crust...cool for an hour...
We have bread! Looks good, tastes good, but I think I may like the Lean Bread a bit better. Of course it is probably a good idea to wait and see how the second loaf comes out, just in case there was an issue with the fermentation part...
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