French Bread - Careme's Recipe

Total Time: 5 hrs 30 mins Preparation Time: 5 hrs Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients

• 6 cups flour
• 4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (2 packages)
• 2 1/2 cups hot water (120-130 f)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons hot water
• butter, for greasing pan and bowl

Recipe

• 1 mixing: using an electric mixer with the flat beater (or by hand, but you'll be exhausted) add 3 cups of flour to the bowl and mix in the 2.5 cups water and the yeast. add up to 1 more cup flour to make a dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. mix for 9 minutes. monitor the dough to make sure that it does not creep up the sides of the bowl and onto the motor. push it down with a spatula if required.
• 2 while dough is being worked, dissolve salt and water. add at the end of the 9 minutes, and mix 1 more minute.
• 3 knead: switch to the dough hook for the mixer and knead for another 10 minutes. add the remaining flour a little at a time until dough pulls cleanly away from the sides of the bowl.
• 4 first rising: put dough into a greased bowl. cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 2 hours. the dough should double or triple in volume.
• 5 knead: gently remove dough from bowl and place onto a work surface. knead by hand for 3 minutes.
• 6 second rising: put dough back into bowl and re-cover. allow to rise 1.5 hours (dough should double or triple).
• 7 shaping: flour a work surface and gently remove dough from bowl onto the work surface. punch down the dough and cut into 4 pieces. allow dough to rest 5 minutes. shape 4 pieces into baguettes or rounds. place the shaped dough on a greased baking sheet (depending on the size of your baking sheet you may need to use 2 of them).
• 8 third rising: once shaped dough is on baking sheet, cover with cloth or paper towel and allow to rise for 1 hour. dough should double in size.
• 9 baking: place an empty broiler pan on the floor of the oven. then preheat oven to 450°f once oven is preheated add 1 cup hot water to the broiler pan to develop steam in the oven (be careful you don't burn yourself on the initial burst of steam) and wait 5 minutes.
• 10 place baking sheet(s) in the oven and bake 20-30 minutes. i use a convection oven so i do not need to rotate during baking. keep an eye on the bread to make sure it is cooking evenly if you have an oven with hot spots.
• 11 the loaves should be golden-brown and should sound hard and hollow when tapped on the bottom.
• 12 remove loaves from pan and let them cool until you can handle them without burning yourself, then slice and enjoy!