Daring Bakers February Challenge - Pain Francais

Pain Francais or French bread was this months challenge and was selected by joint hosts Mary from The Sour Dough and Sara from I Like To Cook.

Baking some French bread might not sound like much of a challenge at first but don’t be fooled, French bread actually requires a lot of time, patience and skill. The general process turned out to be quite straightforward but it was putting those process into action that was the challenging part. The recipe instructions alone were 12 pages long – yes 12 pages and they had condensed it for us!! I don’t think I have ever made a recipe with so many stages. This was partly down to the in depth detail of the recipe and also thanks Mary and Sara who had added their own helped hints and tips along the way. These proved most helped – thanks girls.

The dough is very wet and sticky to work with, keeping it on the move proved the best way to deal with it and its stickiness becomes more manageable as time goes on. The bread goes through 3-4 rises which take in total nearly 10 hours, so this is not the kind of bread to make in a hurry – but with a little time and patience its really worth the wait. The end bread had a thin crisp golden brown crust and an airy centre that had just the right amount of chew to it. French bread likes hot humid atmospheres and this is achieved by giving the bread a sauna as it bakes by throwing in a mug full of water into the base of the oven and then slamming the door shut, trapping the hot steam inside. Just remember to stand back when you next open the oven door or you will get a face full of steam too.

We were given the choice of what style/shape of French bread we wanted to bake from the list below. The recipe would allow us to make:
3 - baguettes (24” x 2”) or batards (16” x 3”) or

6 – short loaves, ficelles, 12 – 16” x 2” or

3 – round loaves, boules, 7 – 8” in diameter or

12 – round or oval rolls, petits pains or

1 – large round or oval loaf, pain de menage or miche; pain boulot

I opted for 2 short loaves (ficelles) and 8 petits pains.

The petits pains turned out very cute and were perfect for dipping into soup, but my favourites were the ficelles which looked (to me) more traditional and how I always imagine French bread to look. They also had a higher chewy inside to crust ratio than the petits pains which I liked. Thanks Mary and Sara for the challenge it was a lot of and has given me a great respect for professional French bread bakers and the work and time involved in producing such a wonderful bread.

Please visit Mary and Sara’s blogs for the recipe and don’t forget to visit the blogroll to read about fellow Darking Bakers breads.