how To Make your own French bread
Some of you went to France already and you have discovered the delicious taste of French bread and you couldn't have enough of it, right? And then you go back home and it's hard to find a correct bakery - une boulangerie - or you find the right place but the price is ridiculous !!! $6/7 dollars for a bread, really ?!! No Way !So what about making your own bread? Let me give you MY recipe, actually my mom's recipe but shhhhh don't tell her. I bought my bread machine - une machine à pain - a year ago and since then, I didn't stop making bread. And nobody gained weight at home but guess what... I know what is inside i.e. whole food.
Here is the recipe that I use, still on the fridge (because I have a very bad memory). Sorry, I use the metric system, I can't deal with cups and ounces when I talk about French cuisine, Cmon... All you need is water, salt, flour (organic is better since most of the chemical crap are in wheat and other cereal) and yeast. The choice of flour is very personal. I personally like to mix white and whole wheat flour.
You have to put the ingredients in the bread machine in this order, the yeast can't be in contact with the salty water at first. For time to time, I also add seeds like pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds or sunflower seeds.
By the way, I am doing my article in English but I am challenging you to understand the recipe written in French. Well you have to work for it a little bit. Also, I decide not to cook my bread in the machine for 2 reasons : first, dont like the cube shape second, I can control the cooking part and I have the crust that I desire. That's why I choose a program that mix and let the dough rise. On my machine it's called "dough" and it runs for 1 hour and a half. When this part is done, while the oven is warming up at 380 celsius, I put some flour on a baking paper (add some on your hands too) the bread on a baking tray with a baking paper.
The first cooking will take 40 minutes. After the 1st 40 minutes, I take my bread off, I flip it and put it back in the oven but this time the temperature is 350 celsius. Let it cook for another 30 minutes. If you like the crust harder, leave it for 40 minutes instead. At the end, don't leave it in your oven if not it will become hard.
Et voilà....
Petit conseil: the best way to keep your bread from drying out is to rap it in a kitchen towel or even better a linen bread sack. As an extra, I'm giving the recipe for brioche "sweet french bread" -
