Baking French Bread for the First Time

After looking in many cookbooks,
I finally chose
Mark Bittman's
how to cook everything



for a simple French Bread Recipe.

My pizza peel.
I am happy to say it fits in the cupboard by
my cutting boards...

I still mean to do the 

bread in 5 minutes a day...

 Meanwhile,
Mark Bittman's is the one I tried...

So I did not follow his recipe or what he saw
as the first choice for how to make this bread.
I used a mixer, not a blender,
in other words.

Split the flour in half.

I think I will always love my mixer...

Half flour in...

about 1.5 cups worth

 

the salt and the yeast added.

spring water; I heated mine...

Water added to mixture.

Mixed with paddle until I needed the
dough hook at the every end.

Kneaded the bread and set it in a ball in a bowl.

Only had 2 hours for it to rise...

I chose to make it into rolls and little loaves...

Put some of them only with flour
on top
and some of them I brushed with
olive oil to make them golden.
*
They were good but a bit on the dense side;
French bread should be a bit lighter than these were;
will be researching in my books to make a better
batch soon!
*
It was so wonderful to be back baking in the
kitchen!