Dutch Oven French Bread
It’s bread week!
I recently finished watching the latest season of “The Great Canadian Baking Show” and was inspired to dip my hand into baking some bread!
Bread is not something that I make regularly - I will bake some dinner rolls for a big holiday meal, and maybe a couple other times sprinkled throughout the year I will make a simple loaf. I do have a go-to bread recipe, but this week I wanted to see if I could make something brand new.
Boy, was I in for some stressful nights.
It’s like I blocked out how much time and patience goes into baking bread! I chose, what I thought to be, a simple french bread recipe. I attempted this recipe - literally just 5 ingredients - 3 times this week! The first time I didn’t add enough water, and it was extremely dense - not light and fluffy as advertised. The second time, I didn’t let it rise long enough. That one looked really flat and the crust was like a rock. The third time I think I didn’t let the yeast activate properly - I think - I’m still not sure what went wrong that time.
Finally, my fourth attempt. I started early in the morning. I had the dough ready for its first rise right when the kids started waking up and asking for breakfast.
This time, I let it rise for 4 hours - until the top of the dough was bubbly and flat. Some recipes call for letting the dough rise for 8-18 hours! I felt that 4 hours was a good compromise between my previous attempt and a full day of waiting for the bread to proof. I was able to put the dough into the dutch oven and in the oven before the kids got home from school, so that’s a perfect timeline for me.
And out came a perfect (enough) French loaf for me!
Ingredients:
3 cups All Purpose Flour
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp sugar
2 ¼ tsp dry active yeast (one packet)
1 ½ cup warm water (around 100-110 F)*
Kid Friendly Instructions:
Let your little one help out with this first step, as much of the rest deals with being patient while the dough rises, as well as putting thing into and out of a hot oven.
1. Dissolve the sugar into the warm water. Sprinkle the yeast into the water mixture and gently mix together. Let this sit for 5-10 minutes - until you see foam forming at the top.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and the salt.
3. Add the flour mixture into the yeast mixture. Your little one can mix this together using a wooden spoon - just until the flour is fully incorporated.
4.Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise for about 4 hours in a nice warm spot. (I chose my laundry room as it is the warmest room in the house - especially when the drier is on).
5. After this first proof, transfer the dough onto a clean, floured surface and form it into a ball. There is no need to knead this dough, as you want to keep all the air bubbles in the bread. You can use a bit of flour to help form the dough.
6. Place the dough ball back into the bowl and cover it up one more time. This time let it rest for another hour.
7. While the dough is proofing for the second time, preheat your oven to 450 C. Place your dutch oven into the oven and let it get nice and hot.
8. After the second proof, use oven mitts and take the dutch oven out of the oven. Take the dough out of the bowl and place it very carefully into the dutch oven. Put the lid back on and put in back into the oven.
9. Bake for 30 minutes, and then take the lid off and bake for another 10-15 minutes.
10. Cool for 10-20 minutes before slicing and devouring!
*The temperature of the water is important because it has to be warm enough to activate the yeast. If it’s too cold, the yeast won’t wake up - if it’s too hot, you will kill the yeast.
My kids, bless them, ate their way through all of my previous failed attempts, so this was a pleasant surprise for them! The texture of the crust is nice and crispy and the inside is super soft and chewy. This is the perfect vessel for toppings anywhere from butter, jams, cheeses and hummus, as well as dipping into soup.
Give this bread recipe a try! An imperfect loaf of bread is just perfect in my book.
Read More
The Kondo Kraze is on the rise. Thrift stores everywhere have been seeing an influx of donated goods with reasons pointing to the newest Netflix series “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo” which teaches those who can’t keep an orderly home to declutter by keeping only items that “Spark Joy”. Is this a realistic lifestyle for those of us with kids in the house? I figured I might as well try to Kondo the kids rooms.