Make your own French bread and Brioche!

Salut la Compagnie !

For those of you who visited France, you‘ve most likely discovered the delicious taste of French bread and you couldn't get enough of it, right ? Then, when you left France, it was probably hard to find a bakery, une boulangerie, that could match the taste of authentic French bread. But if you did manage to find one, the price may have been ridiculous! I mean c’mon, $6-$7 dollars for some bread, really ?! No Way!

So, what about making your own bread? Let me give you MY recipe, actually my mom's recipe, shhh 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 buuuuut 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 wrap it in a kitchen towel or, even better. a linen bread sack.

 As an extra, I'd like to give you the recipe for brioche a.k.a sweet french bread

J'adooooore cette brioche pour le petit déjeuner, avec de la confiture c'est parfait !

See how I enjoy it!

What about you? Do you make your own bread ? What do you like to put on your bread ? Du beurre, de la confiture ...?