Recipe for Love (French Bread)

French 16th century

August 24, 2015

1 Part 1

Make like regular bread, but before baking add french vanilla ice cream.

2 Part 2

Make sure to bake for slightly longer, as the French vanilla must melt.

3 Part 3

For extra taste, manufacture a baguette. Baguette details are given below.

4 Baguette Details (from Wikipedia)

The ”baguette de tradition franaise” is made from wheat flour, water, yeast,and common salt. It does not contain additives, but it may contain up to 2%broad bean flour, up to 0.5% soya flour, and up to 0.3% wheat malt flour.Standard baguettes however may contain a certain number of additives. De-pending on those used either in the original flour or those added separatelyto the bread ingredients, a baguette ? or any other French bread ? may notbe considered vegan or kosher.

While a regular baguette is made with a direct addition of baker’s yeast,it is not unusual for artisan-style loaves to be made with a pre-ferment or”poolish”, ”biga” or other bread pre-ferments to increase flavor complexity

1

and other characteristics, as well as the addition of whole-wheat flour, orother grains such as rye.

Baguettes are closely connected to France, though they are made aroundthe world. In France, not all long loaves are baguettes; for example, a short,almost rugby ball shaped loaf is a batard (literally, bastard), or a ”torpedoloaf” in English; its origin is variously explained, but undocumented. An-other tubular shaped loaf is known as a flute, also known in the UnitedStates as a parisienne. Flutes closely resemble baguettes and weigh more orless than these, depending on the region. A thinner loaf is called a ficelle(string). A short baguette is sometimes known as a baton (stick), or evenreferred to using the English translation French stick. None of these areofficially defined, either legally or, for instance, in major dictionaries, anymore than the baguette. French breads are also made in forms such as amiche, which is a large pan loaf, and a boule, literally ball in French, a largeround loaf. Sandwich-sized loaves are sometimes known as demi-baguettesor tiers. In France a baguette must weigh 250 grams (8.75 ounces), a batard500 grams (17.5 ounces) and a ficelle 100 grams (3.5 ounces). Baguettes,either relatively short single-serving size or cut from a longer loaf, are veryoften used for sandwiches, usually of the submarine sandwich type, but alsopanini. They are often sliced and served with pate or cheese. As part of thetraditional continental breakfast in France, slices of baguette are spread withbutter and jam and dunked in bowls of coffee or hot chocolate. In the UnitedStates, French bread loaves are sometimes split in half to make French breadpizza.

Baguettes are generally made as partially free-form loaves, with the loafformed with a series of folding and rolling motions, raised in cloth-lined bas-kets or in rows on a flour-impregnated towel, called a couche, and bakedeither directly on the hearth of a deck oven or in special perforated pansdesigned to hold the shape of the baguette while allowing heat through theperforations. American-style ”French bread” is generally much fatter and isnot baked in deck ovens, but in convection ovens.

Outside France, baguettes are also made with other doughs. For example, theVietnamese banh mi uses a high proportion of rice flour, while many NorthAmerican bakeries make whole wheat, multigrain, and sourdough baguettesalongside French-style loaves. In addition, even classical French-style recipes

2

vary from place to place, with some recipes adding small amounts of milk,butter, sugar, or malt extract, depending on the desired flavour and proper-ties in the final loaf.

3