Wednesday 15 August 2012

Julia's Pain Français

"It will turn into bread in the oven whatever happens ..."

This is my very first entry as a Bread Baking Buddy, baking this month's "French Bread", in honor of the 100th anniversary of Julia Child's birthday, today, August 15th.

I must admit, I had never heard of Julia Child before watching "Julie & Julia", but my attention was caught.
Julia Child (1912-2004) was an American culinary legend and television personality. She introduced French cuisine to the American public. And, she and I, we share our height!
So when Bread Baking Babe Susan of Wild Yeast announced Julia's "Pain Français" as Augusts special baking project I could no longer resist but to join in.




After converting the US cups, cakes, teaspoons and pounds to metric measurements.
I ended up with the following: 
454 gr flour
380 gr tepid water
6 gr instant yeast
13 gr salt
A very wet (84%), almost batter-like dough. No electric mixing involved here, just getting the hands dirty and hoping for the best ....

After 8 hours the "batards" were ready for the oven. 
Oh they stuck, at my hands, at the work top, at the scraper, particularly at the cloche and at the pizza peel. 

Julia, I trust on you: "It will turn into bread in the oven whatever happens ..."

Well, it did, more or less. It definitely tastes like bread (although very salty). It smells like bread. It just doesn't quite look like French bread.

A rather rustic result.





I'm sure the BBB badge also stands for effort  ....