Daring Bakers #2: [Julie Childs French Bread]

Talk about a doozy for my second challenge!

To see my fellow Daring Bakers blogroll, please click here.

I will admit right off the bat that I was a closet whiner. But as a newb it was a little daunting to see my computer spit out a 14 page recipe. (I still think I am a newb being only my 2nd challenge, but when would you call yourself an intermediate DBer? 4-5, 10 challenges? I am kinda OCD about levels. Just ask my friend, Nikki. LOL.) I remember instinctively twirling my chair around to reach over to the printer after 2-3 pages were done but it kept going and going and going… After I replaced my ink cartridge (no fooling!) and it finished printing, I hurriedly put it in a dark corner and tried not to think about it.

That might be a little dramatic but I definitely procrastinated on this challenge. I was “this” close to being a kitchen wall flower but I have some great DB support sisters – Nikki and Leigh, who convinced me that “daring” isn’t about easy or convenient. Its about being bold, trying new things, facing your fears, all the above. So I caved to the inspirational speech and the peer pressure and retrieved my 14 page recipe from its dark abyss.

Of course seeing as I paired myself up with 2 other procrastinators we ended up not doing it the weekend we originally intended. But it was probably meant to be b/c the following weekend our hostesses Mary @ The Sour Dough and Sara @ I Like To Cook would be baking their french bread and organized an online instructional chat of sorts that anyone could join in. Luckily Nikki had the insight to know that if us 3 bakerteers left it up to our own devices, we might continue on our path of procrastination so she signed us up for Mary’s chat.

It started promptly on a Sunday at 10am EST. That may not be a big deal to easterners but if we do the math, us pacific coasters makes it 7am! There was also another DBer in the chat that lives in Peru (I think) and it was 2am for her! Now *that* is what I call breadication!

To be honest I don’t really know who Julia Childs is. The first time I saw the recipe I read kinda fast and thought it said “Julia Stiles”. The actress? and Baker? Wow. Talented.

::ducking from rolling pins and stale french bread being thrown at me::

The group of us started with the first step – proofing the yeast. “Proofing” can mean several things in bread baking: ensuring that the yeast is active, setting the dough to rise, and letting the shaped loaves rise before baking. Easy enough.

The next step was forming the dough by adding all the ingredients together. There’s only 4 ingredients – flour, yeast, water, salt. What was I worried about? Doesn’t seem hard, right?

After the dough came together and formed a more solid ball I proceeded to turn the dough out, scraping bowl clean, onto my kneading surface. To say the dough was sticky was an understatement. I was the dough monster from the doughy deep. I had dough fingers for days… After I wiggled my doughy fingers in my husband’s face for some shits&giggles I started kneading the dough. After a few flips and turns with the palm of my hand, it was time for its first 3-5 hour rise and hopefully grow to 3x its original size!

One more rise after that and then I could start cutting my dough into shapes. We had a choice of a couple different shapes for our bread but under Mary suggestion I decided to go for a batard (a long loaf, but not quite as long as a baguette) and 6 round rolls. Since french bread is baked free form in the oven (not in a loaf pan) you have to shape it in a way that it will bake up while retaining its shape. Mary explained that the rolls didn’t need a distinctive rising surface so let them mellow on a regular pan with floured parchment paper but the batard definitely would. The recipe explains how to create a rising surface out of a linen towel or canvas but since I didn’t have either of those I made mine out of one of my hub’s tshirts (Duh?! I didn’t want to get any of mine dirty! haha)

If you recognize the distinctive blue and gold block letters on my hub’s tshirt – breath breathe… I promise that after a quick wash in the W/D, it came out in all of its fightfightfight glory again!

After my rising surface was ready I laid my shaped batard in the trough that I had created out of the tshirt and 2 rolling pins to keep the dough from spreading out for its final rise.

Can you see the difference? I admit I got giddy when I saw how perfectly poofy my batard got!

SIDE NOTE: Lorena, see the KA rolling pin you got me for SBGEX?? Thats why I couldn’t write about it until now! Its first duty was for a DB challenge! w00t! Thanks again!! I love it!

Ten bread baking hours later my bread was done. Yes, let’s read that again, shall we… TEN HOURS!?! but the house never smelled so good.

Overall, my experience with this recipe were filled with ups and downs, frustrations and little victories. Will I make this again? Probably not. Am I happy I didn’t skip out this month? Definitely! I made french bread. I can take that off my bucket list. How many people can say that?

Many thanks to Mary for all your help along with my DB sisters, Nikki and Leigh, and the other DBers that were apart of the Sunday morning chat. I couldn’t have done it without you all!

Complete PDF recipe and detailed instructions can be downloaded here.