French Bread

Baking your own bread is a penny pincher's dream. Using Wegman's All Purpose Flour (unbleached) at $1.79 / 5 lbs and bulk yeast at $4.69 / 4 oz, my loaves cost around $0.40 each. Talk about cutting costs. This recipe is adapted from the French Bread recipe found here (I highly recommend this site). I don't have a food scale so I played around with converting the flour measurements, given in weight, to cups (spoon the flour, don't pack it) until I was satisfied with the final product. Although measuring flour by volume is a less precise method for preparing bread, it's a more practical method for the college baker. I do my kneading on my cutting board and find that the blasted-with-heat dorm rooms here serve as the perfect environment for my bread to rise.

Eat with soup for dinner or make a tasty sandwich on this bread for lunch.

French Bread
2 loaves

5 cups white flour
2/3 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups warm water
2 1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 tablespoon salt

Spoon the flour into measuring cups and place in a large mixing bowl. Combine the flour and water and let sit for 20 minutes (this resting period is called the autolyse during which the flour really soaks up all the liquid).

Add the yeast and salt. (Note the measuring spoons I use-- they're thin and narrow instead of the traditional rounded spoon. This is extremely useful when trying to measure out of containers with narrow openings.)

Remove dough from bowl and knead for about 10 minutes. I started kneading my bread like this, having been inspired by the video (plus it's a good upper-body workout). If you adopt this method, shoot for throwing the dough 400-ish times.

Return kneaded dough to bowl, cover with a towel, and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes. Remove dough from bowl, stretch dough into a thin rectangle, and fold in thirds length-wise and then width-wise so that the dough is folded into a cube shape.

Return dough to bowl, cover with a towel, and let rise for 45 minutes again (you can sprinkle water on the towel to increase the humidity). Repeat the fold and let dough rise for 30 minutes covered. Repeat the fold and let rise 10 minutes.

Separate the dough into two equal parts and let the doughs rest for 10 minutes. Shape both sections into boules (great instructions for shaping here). Sprinkle two baking sheets with corn meal (optional) and place the shaped dough on a cooking sheet. Cover both cooking sheets with a moist towel and let rise 45 minutes.






While the dough rises, preheat the oven to 440 degrees F. After the dough has risen, dust each boule with flour and then cut an X into the top, about a quarter inch deep.





Toss some water into the oven to produce steam. Bake the bread for 30 minutes. Turn off the oven but keep the bread inside for an additional 5 minutes. Remove bread from oven and enjoy!