French Bread

French Bread

4 cups bread flour
3 teaspoon active quick rising dry yeast
2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 egg white

Put 1/4 cup of bread flour on your clean counter top and reserve. Place remaining 3 3/4 cups bread flour in a mixer bowl. Spoon the yeast on one side of the bowl and the salt on the other side. Pour in the warm water and mix on low speed with the regular mixer paddle until the dough comes together in a mass. Switch to the dough hook. Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Dough should clear the sides but stick to the bottom. If it is too sticky, add 1 tablespoon of flour at a time. If too dry, add 1 tablespoon of water to dough to adjust.

Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.

Turn the mixer on again and mix for 3 minutes. Take the dough out and place on the counter in the reserved 1/4 cup of flour.  Knead by hand, incorporating more flour as needed until the dough is satiny, smooth, tight and formed into a nice, compact ball.

Place dough in a large lightly oiled bowl (cooking spray is fine). Turn dough over so that all sides have a thin coating of oil. Cover with plastic wrap and set in warm place for 1 1/2 hours to let rest and rise. Dough should almost double in size.

About 1 hour into the rising stage, preheat oven to 450 degrees and place a pizza stone or inverted baking sheet into the oven to heat up. If you are using a loaf pan for steam, also place that into the oven, on the very bottom rack, off to one side of the oven.

After the dough has risen fully, punch dough down and form back into a ball. Poke your finger on the surface – the dough should give into the pressure and slowly creep back up.  Cut the dough into half – you’ll shape one half at a time (keep the other piece under wraps). Pick up the dough – stretch it out until it forms a big rectangle. Dust your work surface with flour and fold the long sides of the dough in to the middle to meet each other but not overlap.  Then do a little “karate chop” lengthwise down the middle of the dough and fold the two halves over each other and pinch all side shut. The karate chop helps get the middle tucked inside. It is important to make sure that all ends including the short ends are pinched tightly to create a seal which allows the bread to rise & expand up and out evenly. If the bread looks a little lopsided, you can try to fix it by letting it rest 5 minutes and gently stretching it out again. Just don’t knead the dough again – you’ll pop all the beautiful gas that took 1.5 hours to create!

Turn the bread over so that it is seam side down. Cover the loaf with a damp kitchen towel. Repeat with the other dough ball. Lightly beat the egg white with 1 tablespoon of water, and brush on. Cover with a damp cloth. Let rise until nearly doubled, 35 to 40 minutes.  Leave the loaves to rest on a well-floured pizza peel or cutting board for 30 minutes.

After bread is done rising, take a sharp paring knife and make 3-4 shallow, diagonal slashes on the surface of the loaf. This allows the steam in the bread to escape so that it expands evenly during the baking process

When you are ready to bake, remove your baking vessel from oven. Carefully slide the gorgeous loaf into or onto your baking vessel.

You can probably fit both loaves on it at the same time, just leave at least 6-8" of space between the loaves. Get a 1/2 cup of water ready next to the stove. Open the stove, put your bread in the oven and throw the water on the oven floor or in the pre-heated loaf pan. Immediately close the oven door. This creates your steam. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Check temperature of the bread using an instant read thermometer if you have one.  The internal temperature should read 190-200 degrees. Remove and let cool before cutting into it.

Adapted from a recipe on Steamy Kitchen.