yuuum, french bread

When I found out I would be baking bread this month I was really excited with the thoughts of chewy aromatic bread with a crust that shatters!!! However, I then realized that I had no idea what I was doing(eeek!). Wow what a challenge this was going to be. After reading through the recipe I thought, holy crap this is a lot of steps, but then I turned backed to thought of bread with tapanade, pate, and loads of jam and butter and I was all happy again. Of course I kept putting this one off (life does tend to get in the way) so I decided to suck it up, wake up early before work one day and get to work on the bread so that I could have it for dinner that night.

Following the recipe, I mixed the flour, water, and yeast in the early morning and did a quick knead before I had to leave (this took less then 10 mins). The dough was a tad bit sticky but I was scared of adding too much extra flour so I tried my best to resist adding more than I needed.

During lunch I came home to find a wonderfully risen dough with a pleasing yeasty smell. I puched it down, did a few quick kneads, ran around the kitchen like a mad man making lunch so that I could get back to work. I made it back to work on time too, you would be proud!

When I got back from work I formed my bread into two rounds so let it rise for the final time. Again, the dough was a little tacky but I didn't want to add too much flour to toughen it up. Forming the dough into this shape was pretty easy (I mean it's just round!) and I places it on my pizza peel so it would be easy to slide onto my pizza stone in the oven. Since I have had so much practice, it wasn't too hard to get them into the oven. I didn't have a spray bottle for the water so I just ended up using my fingers to fling it onto the loafs. A few more applications of water and some more baking later, out came two wonderfully formed loafs of bread. I was so tempted to take out the butter knife and honey butter and go after it right then but I decided I should wait (following the instructions of course) before I dug in.

So this was the end product and I have to say it was delicious. It was a little bit of work (more time consuming then anything) but I have to say I was really pleased with the results. Yet another challenge completed, bring it on!