The Bread Recipe

This long-distance dedication is goin' out to Charlotte in San Diego.

This is mom's old French bread recipe. I have made it many, many times, and I have slightly adapted it. It is a standard pain de campagne. It makes two loaves, which are photographed below, in the August 6 post.

7 cups flour (King Arthur's Bread flour is my preference, but all purpose is fine)
2 1/2 cups warm (not hot) water
one or two glugs of olive oil
2 packets of yeast
A tablespoon or so of salt

Tools:
5-quart stand mixer (you can do without it, but it's more exercise)
a big stainless steel bowl (bigger than the mixer's bowl)
pizza stone (baking sheets are okay, but a stone is more even heating)
plastic bowl scraper
parchment paper (if you don't have this, then dust your pizza stone with cornmeal)
oven thermometer
A pizza peel (one of those cookie sheets without sides is a good substitute)

Turn your oven on to the lowest setting before you start getting your ingredients and stuff together. In the bowl of the mixer, put the water, yeast, oil and salt. Stir it up a bit with the dough hook. Add the flour. Lock the mixer in position and turn it on to the lowest setting (it's my understanding that you can destroy the motor if you turn it up too high with dough like this). Turn the oven off. Run the mixer for 3 to 5 minutes. As things progress, the dough will form a cohesive mass, pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Mist the big bowl with oil and put the dough into it. Cover it with oiled aluminum foil. Make sure your oven isn't hotter than 150 degrees. Put the dough inside, and let it rise for at least an hour. If it's too hot in there, you run the risk of killing your yeast.

Non-Mixer Kneading Method this is actually a relaxing, meditative activity.
Take off your watch and any rings with lots of crevices.
Combine the water, yeast, oil and salt in the big bowl. Add the flour. Mix it all together with one hand, rotating the bowl with the other.
You can either knead inside the bowl or on a floured work surface. I use the bowl, but it's inconvenient if you're shorter than me. Do what you prefer. Shove down with the heels of your hands to flatten it, fold it over, rotate the dough 90 degrees, and do it again. Smash, fold, turn. Keep doing it for 15 minutes. Flour your hands as necessary, but don't add too much flour. You want a smooth, elastic dough. Kneading develops the gluten, which gives the dough elasticity, which allows for those nice bubbles inside the bread. Let the dough rise for at least an hour in the covered bowl (mist the bowl and foil with oil).

The dough should have doubled in size. Remove it from the oven. Turn the oven on to 450 degrees (put the stone inside, on the middle rack). Put a piece of parchment paper, about the same size as the pizza stone or baking sheet, on your pizza peel. If you have no peel, use an upside down cookie sheet. A dusting of cornmeal on the baking surface can substitute for the parchment. Flour your hands. Punch the dough to make it shrink back down. Take half the dough and put it on the parchment and shape it into a loaf. Shape the other half of the dough likewise, so you end up with two loaves. Leave some room between them. I like to simply spray them with olive oil, but you can put salt and fresh pepper on them, too. Let them sit there while your oven preheats. Let at least 15 minutes go by. Gently slide them onto the stone (you can just have them already on your baking sheet if you're not using a stone; there's no need to preheat a baking sheet) and bake them for 25 to 30 minutes. You can apply an eggwash after 25 minutes, but I don't bother. Look for golden-brown color, and the loaf will give a sort of hollow sound when tapped. Put the loaves on a cooling rack.

Variations:
You can chop up some rosemary and mix it into the dough at the beginning.
Grated cheese is good.
You can make three long snakes of dough and braid it.
You can substitute 2 or 3 cups of the flour with whole wheat flour.

This bread has no preservatives, so it won't keep well for more than a few days. Eat it.

Further reading: The Bread Baker's Apprentice is a very edifying work.