Lavender Rosemary French Bread by Danny

Since Larkin, Rachel and Jacob all requested I share my secrets, I thought I would post the recipe to my blog. This is a recipe I modded off of a fairly simple French bread recipe I found online. I've made it enough times that I rarely measure my ingredients very accurately. I'll update this post with pictures when I'm done.

Ingredients:

1 packet yeast (or a good spoon-sized scoop)

a generous pinch of sugar

1 1/2 cup warm water

~4 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tbsp butter or vegan butter substitute

~1 Tbsp fresh/dried rosemary

~1 Tbsp fresh/dried lavender

~1/2 cup vegetable or olive oil

extra flour for hands/work surface/whatever you use as a rolling pin

1/4 cup oats or cornmeal

coarse sea salt

1 cup water

Utensils:

large mixing bowl

measuring cups/spoons

rolling pin

baking sheet

sharp knife

pastry brush (though you can use your fingers)

small oven-safe bowl

bread knife

Directions:

•  Prep the yeast by mixing it with sugar and warm water in a large mixing bowl until dissolved and let sit for 10-20 minutes
• Once yeast is prepped, add butter, flour, rosemary, lavender. Mix until it starts to clump into a ball. Let rest for about ten minutes.
• Lightly flour your hands and the work surface.
• Dump the dough onto the work surface and knead for about ten minutes. If the dough sticks to your hands too much, heavily flour your hands. 
• It should be fairly sticky for the first few minutes but as you knead it will eventually become a nice ball that sticks to your hand when you touch it but doesn't leave any dough on your hands. Add pinches of flour to your hands, the dough or the work surface as necessary if it's too sticky.
• If the dough is too hard and looks dry instead of kind of elastic, add water 1/2 a teaspoon at a time as you knead until it reaches an appropriate consistency
• Set the dough aside. Wash and dry your large mixing bowl (or use a different mixing bowl, I just like fewer dishes). Add the oil to the bowl and roll your ball of dough around in it. Let rise in bowl, covered, in a warm place until doubled (about two hours).
• Go do something else. Read a book, watch an episode of some television show, do homework, write a blog post explaining to people how to make bread, make juggling balls, just leave the bread alone while it's rising.
• Spread oats or cornmeal out on the baking sheet
• Check your bread, is it risen? Good. Punch it down and cut it in half, trying to leave as much of the oil in the bowl as you can (you might want it for later).
• On a lightly floured surface roll out half of the dough into a good sized rectangle, about the length of your baking sheet.
• Tightly roll the rectangle of dough into a solid tube. It should start to look like a loaf of bread. If the ends are little messy or the edge kind of unfolds, just dip a fingertip in that cup of water, wet it and then squish it together until the dough holds.
• Place the loaf on the baking sheet and repeat with other half of the dough.
• There are a couple different ways you can do this next step. For this recipe I like to use the sharp knife to cut a line a good half inch deep the length of the loaf, but you can also cut three or four diagonal slashes or cut Xs. Get creative!
• Let the bread rise for about an hour.  Preheat the oven to 400*F 
• Go do something else. Read a book, finish that episode of some television show you started earlier, do homework, write a blog post explaining to people how to make bread, just try to leave the bread alone while it's rising.
• Using the pastry brush or fingertips, lightly brush the loaves with water (or some of that leftover oil) until they have just enough of a coating that you can sprinkle the sea salt over them and it will stick.
• Lightly sprinkle sea salt over the loaves.
• Dump half the cup of water in the bottom of your preheated oven (careful of steam!), place the rest in a small, oven-safe bowl on the lowest rack. The steam you're creating here helps give the bread a nice crust and means you won't have to brush it with egg or anything.
• Bake the loaves for about 40 minutes on middle rack.
• Remove from oven when crust is a nice golden brown.
• Let cool (or don't, but don't say I didn't warn you it can burn), slice, serve, and enjoy!

Sorry if the directions were a bit much, but I was trying to be more detailed than most recipes I see online. You can easily modify this recipe. Leaving out the lavender, rosemary and sea salt gives you a plain french bread. You can also form your loaves differently. One time I cut the dough into six balls and made them that way instead of standard loaves. 

French Bead

So my friend Cara texted me earlier asking for the amazing delicious bread recipe I use so I figured I might as well share with more than just her. Simple french bread has become my go-to potluck contribution because it's not as hard as one might think and it's pretty cheap to boot.

There's something impressive about making a staple like bread from scratch that a lot of people really appreciate. It's tasty, it's useful, why not know how to make it?

The recipe I give below is inexact at best, but that's generally my philosophy with cooking. You improvise with what's available and play around with tastes depending on what you like. Even if it doesn't turn out perfectly, you know better for next time, which for someone not formally trained in the kitchen is the most rewarding way through the learning curve.

If you want spiced bread you can add things like rosemary or sage directly to the dough. Or I've successfully added whole cloves of garlic right before rolling the halves into tubes to make this into garlic bread.

I'll edit this post after finals to add some pictures of my handiwork (like a true culinary blogger!)

In all honesty, I'm just using this recipe http://allrecipes.com/recipe/french-bread/Detail.aspx following some of the suggestions from the comments and using what I've learned from friends. And even then I don't actually measure exactly most of the time anyways. A tablespoon is usually pretty close to a generous sprinkling straight from the can or a small palmful.

Ingredients:

So reduce the initial flour to 5 cups, though have a 6th cup ready if it's too sticky as you try to knead and as you're rolling it out.
2 packages of yeast or about 1 1/2 tablespoons
~2 teaspoons salt
~tablespoon butter or suitable vegan substitute (mostly for flavor)
2 cups warm water (hot from the tap is good enough)
1 tablespoon cornmeal
a couple tablespoons sugar

Directions:

Remove rings and bracelets unless you don't mind them covered in flour/dough!

Mix the yeast with the sugar and water and let sit for about ten minutes until it looks naturally frothy.

In a large bowl mix the salt, butter and flour together, stir in the water until it resembles dough.

If the dough is super sticky add a little bit of that extra flour. you want it to be moist and malleable, but not super tough to work with. I think a good rule of thumb is you want it to stick to itself, but not to you.

Once you have a dough that you can sort of form into a ball, dump onto a lightly floured surface.

Knead for about 8-10 minutes though I generally just knead for about three kickass songs. You want this to be "smooth and elastic."

Place the dough in a bowl lightly greased with olive oil, cover and let rise somewhere warm until about doubled. About an hour or two (watch a movie maybe?)

Punch the dough down and split in two. I never actually let the dough rest for 10 minutes after, but it probably wouldn't hurt if you do.

With a lightly floured rolling pin or something similar on a lightly floured surface, roll out each half of the dough into a large rectangle. The long (or short, I guess it doesn't matter) side should be just a little shorter than your baking sheet. Roll the flat from this side. Seal the outer edge with water and kind of squeeze the ends into a bread-like taper. These should be about as big around as a roll of wrapping paper or something similar.

At this step I usually also add a second kneading to the dough, rolling it out halfway then tri-folding (like you would a pamphlet) the flats and re-rolling out the rest of the way

Sprinkle the cornmeal on your baking sheet and place your two loaves seam side down. This prevents the bread from sticking.

With a sharp knife, make four diagonal slashes on each loaf. Cover with a damp cloth/paper towel and let rise until doubled (depending on how warm it is, half an hour to an hour)

Preheat the oven to 375*F placing a small/medium bake-proof bowl filled with water on the lowest rack (The steam from this makes the crust chewy and great without having to deal with brushing the loaves).

Bake the loaves for 35-40 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

Cool and enjoy!