The Gradual Incline

Recipe: Better French Bread Than Mine

3 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

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1.  Toss everything in a huge bowl and stir it up a little.  Flour is picky, so don't over-do it.

2.  Measure out a cup of water.  Add it about 1/4 cup at a time, stirring with a strong wooden spoon.  Abandon the spoon and use your hands if you need to.

3.  When the dough is moist but not sticky, stop adding water.

4.  Cover the dough with a towel and let it rise for an hour.

5.  Heat the oven to 375F with your new pizza stone from Williams Sonoma jauntily perched on the center rack.

6.  With a knife, score the top of the bread.  Make little grooves, or spell your name.

7.  Cook it for about 20 minutes: and if you have an old, unreliable oven like mine, watch it like a hawk.  When it's done, it will be golden on top and will sound hollow when you knock on it.  Don't burn yourself doing this.

Failed First Attempt at French Bread

I was trying to do too much at once: after my trial run with sandwich bread last weekend, cooked on the bottom-half of a warped broiler, turned out well, I decided to make it again.  Bored while it sat there rising, I turned to the recipe for French bread and realized it is only three ingredients long.  All of those ingredients were already on my counter.  I started mixing.  The dough was perfect!  Not too sticky, not too dry, and all this without a food processor.  I let it rise, formed two baguettes too cute for words, and popped them in the oven at 450 degrees for forty-five minutes.  Unfortunately, that was the temperature and time for the sandwich bread which was still innocently rising on the counter.  Multi-tasking is not my forte, which is clearly why it is ill-advised to christen this blog while finishing off that initial loaf of bread. 

Results to be announced later.