Bba #14: French

Baking french style bread according to Peter Reinhart's recipe is all about preferments. In fact, In his Bread Baker's Apprentice book, He describes the bread as being a lean dough that is about 70% old dough. It's quite amazing how passionate the French are about their bread, but when you taste a home-made loaf, I think you could understand the passion. I adored this bread and want to share it with yeastpotting.

Here is the preferment after being taken out of the fridge.

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Mixed in the pate fermentee with the flour, salt, water and more wild yeast starter.

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The sticky dough left to rest and rise. Since I use wild yeast, the rising took a little longer than usual.

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After about 3 hours, the dough was separated and then made into the banneton and the epi as seen here.

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The finished epi out of the oven. The crust was a beautiful golden color, and the taste was divine. I will be making this one again for sure!

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