Pain Ordinaire Careme (A Daily Bread)

My best friend and I are as different as day and night....we grew up in completely different places, with different types of food, rules, and well as you can imagine in makes for totally different types of personalities....but we share a few loves and one of them is BREAD! Leeann and I could make a meal out of bread and butter, let me tell you. Jail is no sad place for us...so long as it's REAL butter!

Okay, I admit, I may not like jail so much, but this is my point....We Love Bread!! Short bread, skinny bread, bread that rolls on wheels....okay I'm done. Point Made. End.

This weekend we decided bread making was in order. As some of you may or may not know, yeast terrifies me. I mean, all I can think of is the cartoons where someone put 4 cups of yeast instead of 4 cups of flour and the bread comes growing out of the oven all over the place attacking. Thus my vision of yeast. So bread has always been a little...unattainable for me. At least homemade bread.

Last month I got to spend a whole week with her and she helped me, step by step, get over the fear of yeast. Then she left and I killed two packs full with too hot water. I could hear the little yeasties screaming. "IM BURNING IM BURNING....AHHHHH"

Once I got over my guilt, I got some more yeast and did it right. I think I got this whole yeast thing down. So this weekend we challenged ourselves to some French Bread Baguettes. Let me tell you how important this bread was...very important! That's how important! This bread I can dip into the special extra virgin olive oil with some basil and salt and be transferred back into Italy sitting on the Almafi coast with a glass of wine, some bread, and a few slices of great cheese. So I tell Leeann, when we are done we are having wine to celebrate!

So we found a few recipe's we liked but decided to use the Pain Ordinaire Careme (A Daily Bread) from the Bare Foot Kitchen Witch because hers is pretty direct and we loved the step by step pictures. I managed to break my mini hand mixer and well, minus the smoke and sparks, the bread went off without a hitch (The great thing? My husband went to put my Kitchen Aid mixer on layaway finally so WOOHOO...Success is within reach!)

So after our mixers (Yeah, her's died too...she needs Kitchen Aid too..) died we got on the phone and heavy breathed to each other while we mixed, kneaded, and shaped our bread! I got two long baguettes and a round loaf from mine...all of which is gone now...I managed to snag one quick picture for all our trouble.

Ingredients

6 cups bread or unbleached flour, approximately
2 packages dry yeast
2 1/2 cups hot water 120-130 degrees F)
2 teaspoons each salt and water

While the recipe says it can handle a mixer, both of ours went CAPUT so maybe just some manual labor for the first part here.  We mixed the water and yeast together first and then poured it into 4 cups of flour.
Mix for ten minutes vigorously.
Then add in the salt dissolved in water.
Mix for another 30 seconds or so

Now for some more manual labor.  We don't have the handy dandy KitchenAid Mixer yet so we were doing some serious kneading. 

Since we kneaded, we would to a few turns of push, shove, punch, fold, then add in a bit of flour at a time until the 2 left over cups were used.  Knead for ten minutes.

Put in a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

Let it rise for two hours. It should triple in size unless you killed the yeast.  I am an avid yeast killer...(AHHHH DYING...sorry it still rings in my head...I have nightmares!)

After two hours roll it back out onto a floured surface and knead for about three minutes.

Back into the bowl and cover it.  This second rise will last for 1 1/2 hours.

Once it's tripled its size again, roll it back out and divide it up into the portions you want for your baguettes and such.  I rolled two baguettes and one round loaf.  Let the portions sit for about five minutes before rolling them out to their baguettes.  Then cover with a breathable cloth and let it rise for an hour.

Now while they rise, put a cake pan (not glass) into the bottom of your oven.  Preheat oven 450 degrees for twenty minutes then pour a cup of water into the cake pan.  Watch out for steam!

Slide in your bread and let it bake for 25 to 30 minutes!

Don't be scared of the yeasties....they are more scared of you then you are of them, trust me.  You have the real power!!!