A Life Lesson

Today's kitchen adventure was bound to be a good one no matter how things turned out. How could I have been so confident about that? Today I tried a new bread recipe (french bread) and enlisted the support of my step-daughter. It involved a total of 3 hours, including down time, and required kneading the dough for about 15 minutes of that time. Sure we could have used my kitchenaid stand mixer but I though it would be a valuable life lesson to knead the dough by hand. I hope she considers the effort that goes into putting food on the table. She was there for every step: from measuring the ingredients to shaping the final loaves. I tried to be hands off...key word TRIED...now I know how my parents and grandparents felt when I wanted to "help" in the kitchen!

We each made 2 loaves. I like how different each one turned out. Some long and slender, some lopsided, some darker, another fat/wide. The fam seemed to enjoy it...we demolished nearly 2 of the 4 loaves over our pasta dinner.

French Bread
(Adapted from the Steamy Kitchen)

Ingredients:
4 C bread flour, divided
2 tsp dry active yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 to 2 tsp table salt (we did 2 but I though it was a little salty)
1 1/2 C warm water

Directions:
Dissolve yeast in warm water with sugar. Let sit until yeast blooms (about 5-10 minutes). Add 3 3/4 C of the bread flour and stir until it is hard to mix. Transfer dough to floured surface (use remaining 1/4 C of flour), add salt, and begin to knead by hand. Knead for 6 minutes, rest for 7, then resume kneading for another 6 minutes. Dough should be smooth and elastic. It took an extra few minutes for our dough to achieve that state. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl. Turn dough to coat with oil, cover with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel, and place in warm place to rise for about 1.5 hours. With about 1/2 hour remaining, pre-heat oven and inverted baking sheet or pizza stone to 450 degrees. After dough finishes rising, form into loaves by stretching the dough then folding it toward the middle and pinching close. Do this twice then place seam side down on parchment paper and let rise for another 30 minutes or longer. When it's time to bake, make several shallow diagonal cuts (I used kitchen shears to do this) and slide loaves on parchment paper onto the pre-heated baking sheet. Pour 1/2 C of water on the bottom of the oven floor and immediately close the door. Bake for 20-25 minutes. The water creates steam in the oven, which produces a nice crust with a chewy interior.