From Julia · 2022-2023 · Reconstructed
French Country Bread
Serve when
Serve once the crust has cracked open with that sharp, hollow-sounding crackle Paul and Judith chase all episode.
In the series
Season 1
- S1E6 · ~00:28:00 Paul and Judith run repeated home experiments trying to reproduce a proper French crust in an American oven, eventually lining it with an asbestos tile for heat
In the series
The bread episode is the show's most stubbornly hands-on hour — real dough, real ovens, and a crust that either cracks the right way or doesn't. It gives Paul and Judith a project entirely their own, outside the studio, built on nothing but repetition until the loaf finally sounds right.
Ingredients
Method
- Stir the yeast into the warm water and let it stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.
- Mix in the flour and salt to form a shaggy, wet dough. Knead by hand or mixer until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.
- Let the dough rise, covered, until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.
- Punch it down, divide it into two rounds or batons, and let it rise again, covered, until puffy, about 45 minutes.
- Heat a baking stone (or a heavy inverted sheet pan) in a 475 F oven for at least 30 minutes. Slash the loaves and slide them onto the hot stone, dusted first with cornmeal.
- Add steam — a pan of hot water in the oven, or a few ice cubes tossed onto the oven floor — and bake until deeply golden and hollow-sounding when tapped, 25 to 30 minutes.
Substitutions
- Baking stone: a well-preheated cast-iron skillet turned upside down under the loaves gets you most of the way to a proper crust without specialty equipment.
- Steam: a spray bottle of water misted into the oven at the start of baking is an easier substitute for the ice-cube trick.