Wednesday, August 15, 2012

A very special edition of the Bread Baking Babes!

Yes special indeed; for starters we publish (if we're in time) a day before our usual publication date. In honour of the wonderful Julia Child, who was born a hundred years ago today. Our Wild (Yeast) Susan is kitchen of the month today and what a wonderful challenge she picked for us to celebrate this anniversary. And not only us Babes, but Buddies baking/posting at the same time. I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate her amazing and unique personality.

So we baked her "French Bread" in her honour. Of course that's the perfect choice for a bunch of bakers like us. Julia Child had a wonderful, real, unique person, who was true to herself. Take a look at this wonderful video that Tanna gave us and you'll see what I mean. Isn't this what happens to us... to me for sure, things falling to the ground, flour spilling. Never mind doing another take without things flying around, what you see is what you get. Love that slapping the dough technique too!

Pain Français

What this video also will give you is the recipe (short recipe version you can find at Susan's), the how-to and shaping instructions! In the second volume of "the Art of cooking" the recipe takes 20 pages, but don't let that alarm you in any way, it's never confusing and lots of space are very clear drawn instructions.


My baguettes were lovely, with good flavour and nice holes. Just the slashes weren't too good, I'd love to see those ragged edges, but as Julia says it'll get better when you bake more of them. I didn't use the right flour, as I didn't have AP-flour at hand, so I used (against Julia's strict instructions... sorry Julia) bread flour. I will bake them again soon with lower gluten flour, to see if there is a difference.

Thanks you Julia for giving us "The art of cooking" and thanks Susan for giving us this opportunity to celebrate together with our buddies in honour of Julia Child!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

goed uitgelegd, vooral de tips & tricks. Leuke video en ik vraag me zelfs af of Julia voor ze aan haar brood begon geen klein apertiefje genomen had (zoals het de Fransen betaamd) :) of was dat haar normale doen? Ik zou ook niet graag de boel opruimen na het bakken....

Karen Baking Soda said...

Haha dat was haar normale doen geloof ik, maar ik kan me voorstellen dat je dat dacht (met de stem en de manier van bewegen erbij).

Prachtige broden Lien!

We're so used to edited, rehearsed and perfectioned these days that we're totally surprised and amused by seeing this I guess nowadays it would end up at the blooper section of the DVD haha. Wish they would show us more real people!

NKP said...

Wow, you got wonderful holes in yours! Looks delicious.

Elle said...

Your bread looks so lovely with bread flour it's hard to believe that AP would be better. Happy 100th!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

What gorgeous holes you got! And as Pat notes you did it with bread flour! Blows my mind.

Don't you think Karen we relate and gain courage from the unedited, unrehearsed and very real Julia than todays shows.
Reading her experience at the Le Cordon Bleu, you find that some large part of that were real time demo's.
Bloopers I guess they were but they were also what happens in the kitchen.

Elizabeth said...

I don't know what you mean. I never drop anything or spill flour. ;-)

Your baguettes are beautiful. And I like the slashes. Sure, no ragged edges but at least you did slash. (I was too afraid to slash my bread.)

It will be really interesting to hear what the difference is - if any - between baguettes made with all-purpose and baguettes made with bread flour.

Katie said...

They're beautiful! I wish I could watch that video.... My internet isn't fast enough living out in the back of beyond as we do LOL.

Susan/Wild Yeast said...

Open crumb and perfectly-shaped baguettes, oh yes!