Making "Peasant" French Bread
As you can guess by my previous posts, I've kinda gotten into making bread lately. It's about time really, because bread has been pretty insanely priced for quite a while. For anything resembling a nice loaf you're talking at least $5 here. Some are as high as $12. I shit you not. So that means we gotta try to find the cheapest bread possible, if we want any. Or, do as I'm doing lately, and actually start trying to make our own bread.
So, I've been trying to find recipes for bread that I want to try out. With that in mind, I decided to try out this recipe when I saw it.
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast (1 packet)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups warm water
4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
Olive oil
1 tablespoon corn meal
It seemed pretty easy enough and I had all the ingredients. Plus the name seemed interesting and the pictures they had were nice. Unfortunately, I tried to do two long loafs due to space constraints. I should have just done one long loaf or two balls side by side and not worried about them possibly going together.
I started with the warm water, sugar, and yeast, similarly to the other bread that I made. Well...the other one also had cooking of oats.
This yeast actually turned out to be way better. I dunno if it was the age of the yeast...probably... But I really liked how foamy it got.
After the yeast sat and foamed at the mouth for a bit I mixed it with 3 cups flour and 1 teaspoon salt. I decided to vary the recipe, because it was pretty similar to the other one, and that was a bit salty for me. I guess I'm more sensitive to salt than most people.
The recipe called for mixing in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Perhaps I should have tried that. But I didn't. I used a mixer. If I do try this recipe again, maybe I'll try using a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. But I doubt I will...
The dough was way too sticky because the recipe didn't have nearly enough flour to the amount of water. After making it, I think that was kind of the point. The recipe specifically said to not get it too dry. Unfortunately I ended up using a ton of extra flour just trying to work with it to get it to not stick to everything. Part of that might be how humid it is here. Part of it might actually be intentional. Apparently you're supposed to use oil on your hands to work with it. It was a pain in the ass.
I would have to get used to it if I ever did this recipe again. It's a pain in the ass. Oh...I already said that. Well...it was a really big pain in the ass. It stuck to everything. I dunno how I would work with it. I guess I would have to split it in the bowl I used to let it rise in...which I totally forgot to post the picture of. Cuz it's so important that you see the dough all puffy.
That is really good yeast.
Not pictured is the pain in the ass I went through trying to split the fucker. My hands were absolutely covered in sticky dough. And I still had to add a bunch of flour just to get the fucker to not stick too much to everything. That probably fucked up the recipe a bit.
I managed to get the dough into two pretty equal loaves though. I almost forgot to put the corn shittles down first. That was nearly a disaster. I remembered after it barely touched the wax paper and it stuck like a fucker on it. I had to use a rubber spatula to try to get it off.
Also not pictured is how they looked like two Stay Puft turds in the oven. I kinda forgot to do that whole slice thingie down the loaves.
They ended up looking pretty ugly. But they're actually not that bad. A bit hard. I even tried this tip from @apsu of upping the humidity...but it worked for shit. I guess I could try spritzing them multiple times in the future.
Something like this might not be so bad with a soup. I ended up eating some of it with some spaghetti marinara last night. Was really good...but a bit hard...like all french bread. If I did try this recipe again, I might try it with a bit of flax seed meal. That really softened up that oat bread.
Might be really good to do a similar recipe with a bit of flax in one long loaf.
In the end though, I don't think I'm gonna try this recipe again. It was far too annoying. I'd have to be a lot more careful with dealing with the flour. I guess I would be more prepared to deal with it next time though. But it's really just a normal white bread. The only thing "peasant" about it is that they didn't spend the money on the flour to perfect the recipe.
I don't really suggest this recipe. I'll be trying to look for some rye flour or maybe just get some wheat to try some other recipes. French bread is way too fucking hard. In multiple ways.
I think those are pretty.
Sorry for the poor advice. The breads don't seem too thick so you could also cut the oven time down a bit.
You seem to be having a nice touch in the baking. I'm kind of surprised, even though I shouldn't be.
I think the main things that would have helped would have been to just do one larger bread and not let it get quite as golden. Or do round ones. Maybe this recipe was only supposed to be light brown.
I really wanna get some rye flour. I'm not a really big fan of standard white bread. Another option would be to try a similar recipe with flax added. That got the oat bread super soft.
I'll keep trying recipes, because it's a lot easier than I remember it being. That's probably because I have a mixer. I've probably made pizza dough from scratch a lot more, at least recently, but with a mixer, it's downright easy. By hand, it's a bit of a pain.
I used to have a bread maker, and it's actually not much more difficult doing it this way. That thing was always a pain because the paddle actually was baked into the bread and it was a pain to clean as a result. I actually stopped using it because it was such a pain to clean. Now I realize I probably should have just used it to make the dough and baked it in the oven. Wish I could tell everyone not to get those simple all in one bread makers. They're fun and make the bread easily, but they're a pain to clean, depending on how they're made. It was practically always in the sink.
With the mixer I just put the bowl in the sink and rinse it and come back after a few minutes to an hour and use a sponge and it comes clean easily. The worst is just cleaning the glass pan when I use that, and that's easier than a baked casserole or whatever. Doesn't stick as much as brownies or even corn bread.
Edit: Oh, and they aren't pretty. But I'll get better at stretching them correctly and such so they look good.
Is rye bread rare there? Not sure if it is or not, because it's so common in Finland that even the smallest stores have both wheat and rye flour. Every single store.
You don't have a shop selling flour which doesn't have rye flour.
But flax and oat are both a good addition in bread. Do you add the flax directly or do you first keep them in water overnight to soften up? Some people do that to seeds to make sure they're soft and easily edible when the bread is ready.
We had a "bread maker" when I was a kid. It was really fun, but I was lucky enough I didn't have to clean it. Maybe that was the reason my mother stopped using it at some point, especially if it wasn't possible to machine-wash the parts.
Rye bread is common. Rye flour isn't as common as white or wheat though. Not like it's impossible to find. Just not at every store. Hell, even unbleached flour wasn't super easy to find. Had to go to three stores. It's only at my local grocer sometimes.
People here barely even cook for themselves. They certainly don't bake bread. Maybe they'll bake cookies occasionally. Or a cake. But that's usually from a box or a cookie dough log.
I added the flax when adding the extra flour while it was mixing. When I'm using it in place of eggs for like carrot cake or brownies I mix it with warm water and let it sit. With the oat bread I could probably just add it to the oats which are mixed with boiled water. It's not exactly necessary though, because I use flaxseed meal. It's pre-ground. So not that hard or anything.
I might keep that in mind if I add whole rye or something else to a bread in the future though. Or used some other kind of seed. I probably don't need to soak most overnight though. Maybe just an hour beforehand depending on the seed.
They look reasonably good considering the dough was too wet after initial mix. Good job getting more flour mixed in the kneading process that can be a ball ache.
lol, this made me laugh. I've been making bread for quiet a while myself and it is one hell of complicated business tbh. Much more than it should be considering it's just 4-5 ingredients. I'm convinced it is an instrinct thing when you make bread free-hand. I only got confident with my instincts recently and now most dough comes out OK. Mind you I haven't made anything more complex than pizza dough for a while.
Experimentation is half the fun though :)
I've made pizza dough myself quite a few times. It's rather annoying without a mixer and I could never get a recipe that was quite right for the type of pizza I like. But now with a mixer, I think it's going to be super easy, and I'll have more of a chance to try out recipes and try to find one that I like. With a mixer I just have to prep the yeast, throw it in, mix it a bit, then let it rise and spread it out. Without a mixer it's a ton of work...and flipping it in the air isn't nearly as fun as they make it out to be. Sure, it's a little fun, but it's also a real pain.
And you have to make a ton to get to know how to make it just right...and everyone likes different types of pizza. I kinda hate the type of pizza that everyone else seems to like. I'm clearly going to have to make a ton of pizzas. There's no other way. :P
Yeah man. A food processor makes it a million times easier.
Here's a link to the website I got my pizza making style from.
https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/new-york-style-pizza.html
I'm in the pub right now so can't write a longer comment as my data is crap 😉
Check it out if ya like new York style pizza
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Have you ever made sourdough? I like my no knead recipe.. it's dead easy.
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Don't steal away kneading, as it's the best part of making the dough!
Even though I use a machine for the kneading..
I'm not really a big fan of sour dough. Sometimes it catches in my throat and I gag. The only sour dough I've ever really liked is a really mild sour dough that's made by ALDI.
But from what I understand of the process, it's actually a bit more complicated than standard dough, since you need a sour dough starter...or to make your own from a previous sour dough.
So are you saying I should write a post about how to control the sourness of the sourdough bread?
Sorta... but once you have the starter it's easy. But if you don't like it, well that's another story entirely!
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Hello :) Here is a bread bakers community @breadbakers. Post with #breadbakers tag and get to know other bread bakers on Steemit!
Hello I’m host of the community. Jump in to the community! There are bread geeks 😊
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Really nice bread!
What rye bread are you aiming for? If a simple one with wholemeal then I might have a recipe for you. If a light and fluffy one, I might also :D