Julia Child’s
# 15- 2008
The Daring Bakers: All the info is on the right side bar if you don’t already know who and what the DBs are about. (If you don’t know who the DBs are, I’d love to meet you because you must be from Mars!)
This was certainly a DB challenge. It seemed to send shock waves through the group. Fun how someone you can only see the face of with the aid of a microscope, strikes fear in the hearts of bakers who can tackle the likes of the Gateau Saint Honore. But, these little yeasties sent DBers around the world running for cover.
Remember the old the dog ate my home work story, we were getting a lot of that. Then with a few slim glimpses of successes and loud raves of shockingly good tasting bread, one after another gutted it up and started baking. Seventeen pages of recipe reading is daunting but you can only do one step at a time. One step at a time with a lot of time in between each step delivers France and the streets of Paris. Hey, I’m there. Six times I’m there this month!
Mary (aka BreadChick from theSourDough) and Sara (from ILikeToCook) brought us this months challenge. They certainly picked a challenge and coached us through with flying colors.
All the fear and bitching that this recipe brought out, is really what the DBs are about. It’s really just the first step we all take when we are presented with that recipe we just know “I can’t do that.” There is one thing I have learned each month since joining the DBers.
Wow! Guess what! I CAN DO IT! But, I have to start with step one and just keep going.
I learn lots of other things along the way, but for some reason I seem to re-learn this most every month. I have to start.
I could cut and paste the recipe for you here but Mary has it on her site here so I’m just going to give you BREAD!
Glorious French Bread!
It’s bread: you mix up water, yeast, flour and salt. That’s it. One thing this recipe has you doing is giving the dough short (2 to 5 minutes) resting times between several of the steps. One of the most fascinating things to me about this dough was how much it changed from the first kneading - gluey, sticky, stringy - give it a 3 minute rest, then knead it for a minute before putting it in for the first rise. In that 3 minute rest, it went from that gluey, sticky, stringy state to almost smooth and barely sticky!
The recipe describes the dough after the first rise as “humped into a slight dome...light and spongy when pressed...some big bubbly blister on the surface...” This is a recipe that uses words to tell you where you’re headed. Words that tell me what I’m looking for are the sign of a good recipe to me.
You’d think that in six bakings I’d have gotten fancy but this bread does the fancy on your taste buds.
Breakfast this morning? Coffee, Morbier Raw Milk Cheese and what else, Mary and Sara’s Julia’s French Bread!
And now a word about my quiet: I’m learning a new camera and setting up a new computer. I hope to be back up to speed by the end of next week. I have several things backlogged that should be great fun. So, I’m a little slow in responding and commenting.
Hope you try the bread!
Db - French Bread - February
Monday, February 25, 2008
This is as close to Paris as I can get in Dallas Texas!
When Marie said “Let them eat cake”, this is what she had in mind.
I am shocked when I look back at my notes and discover that since we were presented this challenge, I have baked this bread 6 times.
This bread is that good.
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There are twelve of us, a happy little group with a passion for bread baking. What we share is a love for fun, baking bread and doing so together. Across country, across boundaries, across the internet. We are about the new coffee klatch in our virtual kitchens, the new over the fence talk taking place on the Internet, sharing knowledge, helping each other out.
The modern kitchen table may look just like grandma’s except for that laptop sitting next to the coffee cup. Through the magic of Instant Messaging all of us are chatting over coffee at the kitchen table, baking bread. All our different houses, all our different kitchen tables, same group. You know; a bit like these communities in Eastern Europe where all the women of the village bake their bread on one day, share the communal oven, meet at the hearth, gossip and teach each other, sharing their knowledge. Some of us have known each other for different times; some of us have even met in person. Our experience with bread baking may vary but we all share a great passion and fascination for bread at the moment. And so once a month you can find us together in one of our kitchens: yakking, baking and laughing.
Same recipe, different kitchens, using local flour and sharing what we found. You can read all about our monthly recipe at the Kitchen of the Month, our individual posts to be found at our respective personal blogs.
