I'm giving bread a go today, baking some baguettes at home for the first time ever. I'm following this recipe Farmgirl Fare: Easy French Bread Recipe: Four Hour Classic Parisian Daily Baguettes (Baguette Normal) But substituted some bread flour for the AP. I made pizza dough a couple weeks ago and loved it so I wanted to give bread a try. I love a good crusty bread with charcuterie and cheese and olive oil - I can live off this. Any good recipes or tips for home bread baking?
I haven't baked bread in a while but I used to take the baguette dough, put it in the trunk and go for a long drive to let the dough proof. Beyond that, try different flours and you can also create your own "mother" if you really continue baking breads. If you really get into it, I like these two books the most: The Bread Baker's Apprentice Tartine Bread
Here are two of the three loaves. Number three got consumed within minutes. Turned out really nicely. I give it an 8/10 Image Unavailable, Please Login
Bread looks great. One nifty trick is to mist/spray some water into the oven for the first couple of minutes the bread is baking. Does wonders for the crust!
Another way to emulate a pro bread oven's moisture and heat is to bake in a cast iron piece with a lid, removing the lid for color at the end. (500F!)
I put a very large cast iron skillet on the lowest rack and added a cup of ice cubes, which is what the recipe called for. Worked great, I could have left the bread in for another minute or two and gotten some beautiful color, I think.
nice work we had to bake baguettes for our final exam in culinary school our 1st semester the smell in the kitchen was awesome
If you want to learn how to make "real" bread, consider looking through Tartin's three books: Amazon.com: tartin Great results, lots of fun trying to "control" natural leaveling. (You may want to consider grinding your own grains to order. The difference is staggering, both in terms of flavor and nutrition.)
I'm going to be trying this soon as well. Had some real good experiences when I made pizza dough so why not try it!
Looks good..slice it,take a pic of the crumb..Peggy's ciabatta was really good. Did you get a baking stone..? Cheers, RE
Baking Bread is an Art... and really takes time to master. there really is nothing better than fresh crusty bread out of the oven... with butter.... its just about as good as it gets. I like Bouchon Bakery's recpies ... but it looks like you are doing well!
Let me tell you.....you wish you were me right now. This stuff is yummy! . Image Unavailable, Please Login
That looks so good. All of it. Here's Alton Brown making a very simple Beer Bread. I've made it once and it was really good for what it is. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO2uXwSfbVQ]Beer Bread-Food Network - YouTube[/ame]
Looks great. As a rule, bread and other baked goods need to be cooled on a rack of some sort, assuring they get some air flow on the bottom. (It prevents uneven moisture build up, uneven crust crispness, etc.)
My wife and I have been making Pizzas from scratch for a while. You will notice a nice crust by using OO grade flour. (crispy and less likely to burn at high temp). Also when loading the pizza I tend to like more sauce, but don't like a soggy crust. Learned this trick a while back. Put a small amount of olive oil on first, followed by parmesan cheese, then mozzarella , (this will seal the base in the oven on the hot stone) ,then add your sauce and load your pizza, finally top your pizza again with mozzarella and parmesan ( go easy) again. Approx 12-14 min.at 600-650 degrees on a pizza stone (coated with fine corn meal )after 7-8 min turn the pie a quarter turn every minute till done. We use more of a Sicilian sauce ,passed for approx 3 generations, but altered here and there (Americanized)as I do not like the sweet sauces so prevalent . Docf
