My french connection

This month's challenge was french bread.
I am a bread novice. I only figured out how to make bread and not hockey pucks about a year ago. Since then every time i crack open the yeast i get nervous.

This month's recipe made me doubly afraid. It was 10 pages long.. in small print.

So i started by staring at the recipe for a few days in horror.. and eventually took the time to read it. I read all 10 pages. Then i stared at the pages in horror again for a few more days.

I finally got up the courage one Saturday and started my bread. I had read an other's blog about finishing at 10 at night and i decided that i would take 2 days to build the loafs.

I started at noon on Saturday blooming my yeast. I mixed up all the ingredients and started to knead the bread. It went pretty good and my hands were sore by the time i was done.

After the first rise i kneaded again to get the air out. It was about 5pm when i set the bread to rise again.

This is after the second rising. This was in the morning after i had left it for the evening.

I kneaded again and started forming my pain De menage.
I have formed my loaves and they were having issues rising so i turned up the heat and locked them in the bathroom till they behaved.

I tried to do the steam oven and had a hot cookie sheet in the bottom of the oven and just kept tossing ice on it. My husband thought i was having a few issues.

The bread baked up nice and although it didn't rise in the upward direction (It expanded out the bottom) They looked almost perfect on the outside.

Now we ate one loaf ourselves and thought that the texture was amazing.
It was still slightly warm when we ate it and it was just the right amount of chewy. All of my family is more of sourdough fans so the flavour was lacking a little bit.

The second loaf i gave to a co-worker for her birthday. She said that it was wonderful and her whole family really enjoyed it with their chili.

I don't think this will be something i do again for a long time. I didn't think that the effort was worth the results. It was a great experience though.

Thank you DBers

I am looking forward to march!

Sandra