Making French Bread: A step-by-step guide

I’ve been asked by a couple people about making French Bread, so here’s the scoop.  Let me start off by saying that this is a recipe from Kathy Lehr, a master bread maker, and I learned all the techniques shown in here from her.  Keep in mind that I’m still learning and working on my technique, so if the dough in the pictures doesn’t look perfect, well, that’s because it isn’t.  The main thing is that the bread is crusty and tastes pretty darn good.

When you first start to make bread, there is a key point to remember: don’t get discouraged if the first batch doesn’t come out exactly as planned.  Remember that just because ingredients look the same on the surface doesn’t mean they all act the same. I’ll get to this in a minute when discussing flour. Not only are ingredients different, but ovens are different. They cook at different temperatures and some brown better than others. When you have made your first batch, just make sure to take a minute to look at what happened to the bread and work to compensate for it in the next batch.  The trick is to just keep making the bread- within two or three batches it’ll come out looking great and it tastes incredible.

I have taken several of Kathy’s workshops and written about them: Easy as Pie, French Bread and Multigrain Bread.  I’m signed up for her week long bread making class and can’t wait until it starts.  Historically, I’ve had just about zero success in making breads at home.  It has always simply been easier to forgo quality and flavor and buy it at the store.  Well, that changed pretty rapidly and now it seems as though I just can’t stop making bread.  It is so easy and really doesn’t take a whole lot of time to do.  Sometimes it’s a bit messy, but that’s no big deal- just means a few more minutes in the cleanup.

Let’s take a minute to review the recipe.  It is posted up in grams simply because that is the most accurate measurement.  Your scale should read the same as mine, whereas the cup of flour you scoop might be from a compressed package of flour or perhaps I just put more into a cup than anyone else.  With this in mind, it’s just easier to measure by weight than volume.

Speaking of flour, there are so many different kinds of flour on the market that it is somewhat overwhelming. On the recommendation from Kathy, I use King Arthur Bread flour. They are an employee owned company, which I support wholeheartedly and they test their flours regularly to ensure that the gluten levels are appropriate. I didn’t know that at different times of the year the gluten levels are very different, even from the same company. Makes it hard to get consistent results every time. With King Arthur, there’s nothing to worry about. I have read that Bob’s Redmill does this as well, but I have not yet used their product for bread making.

King Arthur Flour, Red Star yeast and fine grain sea salt all get weighed out. Photo by Scott Groth

I also use Red Star fresh yeast cakes. You can find them at just about any grocery store. They are located in the chilled section of my grocery store near the ready made cookies and whatnot. They also carry Fleishman’s yeast, but I like the Red Star. It works every time for me and there is no need to activate. I crumble it between my fingers as it is added to the dry ingredients. One cake gets me two full sized batches of dough or about 16 loaves.

French Bread Recipe by Kathy Lehr

1000 grams of bread flour – about 7 cups

20 grams of fresh cake yeast or 1 tablespoon dry yeast

20 grams of fine grained sea salt

660 grams of water – about 4 cups- use bottled or filtered water

That’s it. Now, I have what is called an Artisanal Kitchen Aid Mixer, so although the entire batch will fit into the bowl it creates a huge mess. Because of this, I break the recipe down into 2 batches. 500 grams flour, 10 grams cake yeast and 10 grams of salt. I always have the two cups of water available to use, but rarely use the entire two cups. We’ll get into that in a minute. If you’ve got the big dog Kitchen Aid, go nuts in one batch. You’re going to need the dough hook for this recipe.

So the deal is this: take off the bowl from your mixer and place it on the scale. Tare the scale (zero it out) and measure your flour. Tare again and measure the yeast. Tare again and measure the salt. Place back on the mixing stand and give it a whirl on level 2 to mix the ingredients up a little. I start by pouring in about a cup of the water for a half batch- pour it in quickly. When that is incorporated, I add in about a half cup additional. The dough should form into a ball and be slightly sticky / wet. This is a wet dough, so that is what you are looking for. In my mixer, the dough ball just slightly sticks to the bottom when I have the right consistency. At different times of the year, you will need different amounts of water. In the winter, a touch more because it is dry inside. In the humid summertime, probably less.

When the dough ball has formed, kick the speed up to Level 4 on an Artisanal mixer or to medium on a full size mixer. Knead for 3-4 minutes. Make sure that you hang around though because that dough will make your mixer grow legs and the last thing you want is a mixer crashing to the floor.

Kneading in the mixer. Photo by Scott Groth

After it has kneaded in the mixer, you can take the dough out of the mixing bowl and knead it a little by hand to get to know it a little bit. If you have a pate ferment from a previous batch of bread, toss it in now and knead it into the existing dough.

I use an overnight “cool rise” in the refrigerator, so I put my dough in a big glass bowl and cover with plastic wrap for the night. Right before I got to bed, I punch the bread down once. In the morning, it’s ready to go. There are few things that smell as good in the kitchen in the morning as fresh baked bread. Yumm.

The dough removed from the fridge and the flour cloth ready to go. Photo by Scott Groth

Okay, after the dough has risen overnight, take it out of the fridge and punch it down again.   Let it sit for 30 minutes in the bowl, covered with a towel.   Next, I take the scale out again also so that when I cut the dough they will be about the same size. For this amount of dough, I typically make eight loaves at about 225 grams each.  You could do six larger loaves at 300 grams each too.  My oven will only hold 4 loaves at a time though, so I like the smaller loaves and will put 4 dough balls back in the fridge until they are needed.

All right, so what we do now is called folding the envelope. You take the dough ball and pull it out into a rectangle shape.

Square the dough off a little- might need more flour than I used to prevent sticking. Photo by Scott Groth

Fold the bottom up about 2/3 of the way.

The first fold of the envelope- up 2/3 and press. Photo by Scott Groth

Fold the top down over the bottom.

The second envelope fold- the top pressed over the first fold. Photo by Scott Groth

Flip the roll and give it a good smack with your hand to take out the air bubbles.

Rotate the folded dough 90 degrees and give it a smack. Photo by Scott Groth

Repeat the fold from above one more time.

This is the third fold overall- up 2/3 of the way again. Photo by Scott Groth

This is the fourth fold, with the top being pulled down to form a roll. Ready to move to the next step. Photo by Scott Groth

Lay the roll seam side up and flour your thumbs. Gently press your thumbs into the seam and roll the dough over the top of your thumbs with your fingers. Remove your right hand and tap the dough together with the base of your hand, pulling slightly with your left thumb as your remove it from the dough.

Dust your thumbs with flour and fold over kind of like a taco. Photo by Scott Groth

Flip the roll from left to right and repeat once again, with the seam side up. Typically I do three “thumbs” in a row.

Press the seam down with your right hand as your pull your left thumb out. Photo by Scott Groth

Next up, place the dough on the counter with the seam side down.  We are going to roll the dough outward with our hands. Cup your hands rather than holding them flat to start. Place them in the middle of the roll. With a back and forth motion, roll the dough on the counter while you pull your hands outward lightly.

This dough is ready to be rolled out by hand. There is an air bubble at the end that will get rolled out. Photo by Scott Groth

This dough is rolled out and ready to move to the flour cloth. Photo by Scott Groth

Once the dough is rolled, place it seam side up on a floured cloth on the backside of a cookie sheet. Pleat the cloth between each loaf so they don’t touch. Cover with another cloth and let rise for about 45 minutes to an hour. This is a great time to turn your oven on.

The dough is resting, ready to bake soon! Photo by Scott Groth

The recipe calls for the oven at 475 degrees with the rack on the middle shelf of the oven.  As described earlier, all ovens are different.  My oven needs to be at 495 to get proper browning. Sometimes I even have to turn on my convection depending on the moisture of the dough. Check out the setup inside my oven. I’ve got the natural clay tiles (you can’t just buy these at Home Depot- contact WRSOC if you are interested in some) lined up on the shelf. You can use a pizza stone or the back side of a cookie sheet as well. Below that, I have a loaf pan with some broken tiles in it. This is where the steam element comes into play. Right before you start cooking, use a turkey baster and squirt about 1/4 cup of cold water onto the tiles inside the loaf pan.  Immediate steam action.

This shot is to show the oven setup- the tiles and the loaf pan for the steam. But the bread looks good too! Photo by Scott Groth

Okay, after the dough has risen and your oven is at temperature, take one loaf at a time and put on a peel. You can either use a peel, I use a thin wooden cutting board I have or try some thick cardboard if you are in a pinch. When it is on the peel, use a straight razor or other very sharp medium and slash the bread from one side to the other, creating a half moon shape.

Slash the dough from left to right, holding the blade at a 35 degree angle. Photo by Scott Groth

Place the loaf into the oven and repeat. When all loaves are in the oven, squirt another 1/4 cup of water into the loaf pan and close.  Check for caramelization after 7-10 minutes.  If they are not browning and you have convection, I turn mine on 500 degrees.   After about 20 minutes, prop the door of the oven open with a wooden spoon for the steam to escape the oven.  The total cook time should be between 24 and 28 minutes.

Remove one loaf and using an instant read thermometer, stab it through the bottom of the loaf. I know it sounds violent, but it kind of is. When the thermometer reads 210 degrees, you’re good to go. Remove the other loaves to the cooling rack and repeat the cooking process with the remaining dough if you have any.

One really cool thing to do is listen to the bread after it has been cooked. It actually crackles as it cools. I love that sound. Wait until the bread has cooled completely before eating it. It will certainly taste better after it has cooled and the bread has completed its cooking process.

This is the finished product- delicious, crusty French bread. Listen for the crackle as it cools on the rack. Photo by Scott Groth

So to store the bread, make sure that you either wrap it in a clean, dry dishtowel or a paper bag. Never use plastic- the bread will continue to lose moisture and it will first become a bit soggy and then moldy. To freeze the bread, wrap in plastic wrap and then a layer of foil. Write down the temperature you cooked the bread on the foil with a permanent marker along with the date it was cooked. This way when you go to reheat it, all you have to do is set your oven at that temperature and cook for 10 minutes. You’ll have perfectly cooked bread every time.

That’s it in a nutshell.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask.  If I don’t know the answers, I’ll find out for you.  Happy baking and enjoy this delicious bread.