#14: French Bread

The recipe I use when making French bread in the past has usually been the one from Peter's Crust and Crumb. That recipe requires making the dough the night before and retarding it in the refrigerator over night. Because of the retarding, the final crust is covered with little bubbles where carbon dioxide bubbles formed during the retardation.

This recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice uses a different technique of making part of the dough the night before (called a pâte fermentée or "pre-ferment") and making the final dough the day of. The final loaves don't have the same little CO2 bubbles but are more in the line of traditional French bread.

I also applied what I learned during my class with Peter by both refraining from spritzing the actual bread in the oven and removing the extra water from the steam pan at the 5 minute mark. The crust of the bread, while still crisp, lacked the excessive chewiness that my French bread typically has. The crumb was soft and tender and I'm proud of my scoring which left a delicious pattern along the surface of the loaves.

I look forward to turning one of these loaves into French toast this week.