Jun 21, 2010

Baking Bread

This weekend I got tricked into making bread.  A had to choose between spending time with Georgette and his oldest son.  Well he sort of chose both.  He took L to the farmer's market and on the way out the door asked me if I could 'start' the bread.  Here were my instructions:
500g of flour
30% of Georgette
45% of water
1 of the 'small' spoon of salt
1 coffee spoon of honey -- I'm thinking 'what the h3ll is a coffee spoon, is that teaspoon?'
Oh and try a mixture of different flours with oatmeal...
 
So after vacuuming and mopping the whole down stairs I got to work on Georgette.  I am sure A was feeling all warm and fuzzy with Georgette and I making break together.  Ugh.  The first time I messed up.  Turns out 45% of 500g is not 375.  Where was my head?  So I added too much water and then compensated by adding lots of flour and no extra Georgette.  I did use some white whole wheat, bread flour and whole wheat flour...  I am not really the kind of person that makes exact measurements when cooking, but I do know I used the last of the white whole wheat flour.  So I set that batch aside -- still to wet and tried again.  This time I did it better.  I used 102g oatmeal, 248g of bread flour and 150g of wheat.  225ml of water, 150g of Georgette, 1 tsp of salt and 3 sec of pouring honey. That mixture was too dry.  I failed again.  Thankfully Z woke us from his nap and I retreated from the kitchen.  As Z and I descended A and L came back from the market and A mixed by 2 failed attempts into one  ball. 
Four hours and 1 pool trip later as I was about to fall asleep on the couch, A informs me that he is calling his 'maman' and that I need to shape my bread. 
Not sure at what point this was my project, but he says that I can shape little balls at 80-90g and big ones at 500.  So I shape balls between 90-100g and big ones at 250ish...  One I think was 275g.  I am a rebel without a cause.  Et Viola.  more waiting.  Finally at 6pm A said that I have to cook my bread, but I let tell him that I can't possibly take more of his fun away and I let him throw the bread in the oven. 

So in short, I made my first French bread this weekend -- and it was 100 times better than A's first attempt ;)

2 comments:

  1. sounds like a little marital competition going on... ;)

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  2. why did I come all the way to Paris to have some good breads (they are indeed very good here) when I can just have them at your place?

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