In the “Observations” section of Beard on Bread, Beard recommends using North Dakota hard wheat flour (now more commonly known as bread flour). Since I live in the neighboring state of Minnesota, my grocery store sells a regional brand of North Dakota milled flour, Dakota Maid by the North Dakota Mill. I finally used up all of store-brand flour all-purpose flour I had on hand last week, and so I bought a 10 pound bag of bread flour and a 5 pound bag of all-purpose flour. As my flour rolled down the checkout lane conveyor belt, the woman in the lane next to me loudly exclaimed, “Oh my God! That’s a LOT of flour!” to no one in particular. Well, yes, it is a lot of flour, but I’m making a lot of bread. Today’s recipe: French-style Bread.
The Ingredients:
The Challah Bread I made on Wednesday called for egg yolk mixed with water to glaze the top of the loaf; French-Style Bread calls for glazing the loaf with an egg white mixed with water. I saved the egg white from the Challah Bread (in the little container in front) because I hate wasting anything.
I couldn’t get my bread dough to hold together after adding 5 cups of flour, so I added an extra tablespoon of water. That seemed to do the trick. My rising time was only 45 minutes, and then I shaped the dough into approximations of French bread loaves:
My dough shaping skills definitely need work. I checked on the loaves after 25 minutes in the oven, and they were already done.
So how did the bread taste? Well, between 9:00 am this morning, when I pulled the bread out of the oven, and 6:00 pm tonight, Mike and I seem to have devoured both loaves. Completely. Mike ate his with margarine and hummus; I had some slices with jam this morning and then switched to straight bread in the afternoon. In our defense, Beard does say that this bread “will not hold for more than half a day” so we felt compelled to enjoy it to its utmost while it was still fresh. Really, we had to.
There are some people who, if given the opportunity, will eat a whole bag of potato chips or a whole box of Girl Scout cookies. Mike and I seem to be the kind of people who can eat a whole loaf of homemade bread. Each. And it was absolutely glorious.
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