The Frugal Gourmet P1 French & Italian Breads Jeff Smith Cooking HD

How are you I’m glad you’re here I’ve just finished an enormous pile of bread for you I have a new French bread recipe for you and I can’t wait to share it with you if you’ve seen me do French bread before disregard the previous recipe please this is so much better and

It is so easy it’s just incredible but first of all today’s lesson on history who invented bread you thought I was gonna say that China he’s didn’t you because I always say the Chinese but actually they they didn’t the Chinese have really always had a little flat

Pancake and that goes back to very ancient times and we found that little flat pancake unleavened you see in China and we also found it in Egypt and we found it among the Jews the people of Israel now when the Jews went into Egypt to find more grain you remember the

Story of Joseph and the whole works you see they brought with them a sourdough a rising agent and they were the first ones to ever use yeast after they fled Egypt the Egyptians succeeded in isolating that yeast and pretty soon they wound up with what they called the

Raised barley cake and they’ve been given credit for making raised bread and they really shouldn’t have been the Jews did it first the Jews did it first bread was a very common in ancient world but was very tough the Egyptians used to bake bread that was almost like a almost like a

Porridge it was just hard as a rock and in order to eat the stuff you had to soak it in water first and then it would begin to collapse and then you could eat it like a gruel and the water that would drain off of the bread would ferment and

From that we invented beer so bread and beer go hand in hand and the old days in Egypt the housewives would go from door to door selling the beer that they made from bread that’s the oldest occupation ha ha ha you thought it was something else all right on to bread this morning

I want to prepare a batch of a French bread for you without any difficulty at all the first thing you do is to measure our oh please remember that you have to have a scale when you bake bread you must have a scale you can’t use a measuring cup because flour changes its

Volume all of the time depending on the weather humidity whether or not the stuffs been packed down where they’re not has been sifted nobody wants to stand around as if flower anymore you don’t do that so get a good scale I have a little Swiss scale here

Swiss it’s Swedish or am I in trouble and I have it set for two pounds three ounces and I’ve measured out my flour here let me see if that’s so I just use a whole lunch sack there we go it’s exactly two pounds there it is it’s

Exactly two pounds three ounces of flour that’s what I want you to use all right so first of all we’ll put in our mixing bowl and if you don’t have a fancy KitchenAid like I have then you can use a regular mix master to at least get it

Started so we have 2 and 1/2 cups got that of tepid water what does tepid mean tepid means when you put your finger in it you go ah it isn’t warm it isn’t cold it’s just ah got it to that then two and a half cups of

Water we’re gonna add two packages of dry yeast that’s about 2 teaspoons if you’re using it from the jar I find a little bit cheaper this way though bite in a jar there we go otherwise use two packages got it nothing to it and we’ll begin to make a sponge

Now the total amount of flour that you’re going to use is two pounds three ounces don’t change that don’t become confused now by the fact I tell you to use 4 cups and so forth all of the flour that I use is gonna come out of this sack I’ve already measured

It by the way if you want to buy good bread flour try and find a brand that has that’s heavy and hard wheat in the west coast in my area in Seattle I have a marvelous hard wheat flour from Fisher’s flowering mill but I can’t find

It out here so look around for a hard bread flour and that will give you a very lovely crust that’s what we want so to our to our water and yeast now we’re gonna add four cups of the total amount of flour got that don’t get confused so

Here we go and we’re gonna begin with a classic French dough it’s just so easy to make it it’s terrific just measure that out and loosely here because what we want to do is to allow the the flour and the water to blend for a while and

You want to allow the flour to turn to gluten there’s a substance in flour called gluten that is really tantamount to goo and we wanted to really go up here so that we get a nice crust if you make bread it’s too much of a hurry so

You’ll get that nice soggy quite lovely painless tasteless stuff that you and I I call white bread I can’t stand it I don’t eat it neither will my sons there we have four four cups of the total amount of flour look at that look inside the bowl and you’ll

Understand what I’m talking about you see see how gooey that is now if you wait long enough this will pull away from the side of the bowl and I know you doubt me so I’m gonna show you what happens I’m gonna get another bowl I’ve already done this batch you want to mix

This in your Mix Master for 10 minutes and after 10 minutes it will turn to gluten it’ll be absolutely gooey gooey gooey I don’t mean just a sticky mess like this you’ll see the difference and then it will it’ll be ready to absorb the rest of the flour gluten is what we

Want and it’s very very important to put bread baking that’s the secret let me show you the difference I’ve already needed this one for 10 minutes now you watch you see how you see how sticky whoops it’s climbing right off the paddle you see comes right up the paddle

See how sticky that is on how stringy how how how its up how it pulls out you know poop you see how to pull the weight in the bowl gorgeous stuff all right we’re ready now to add the rest of the flour and we simply pour that in and we

Need to add some salt too let’s do the salt first you want 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of water and there’s a teaspoon of water and 1 teaspoon of salt all right blend that we’re just trying to make a heavy very heavy saline solution you see so it’ll mix into the

Bread properly and it goes if you have that now 1 teaspoon of salt mix in 1 teaspoon of water into the dough that we’ve blended for 10 minutes so that it pulls away now if you don’t have a heavy mix master at this point you have to

Stop and blend in the rest of the flour by hand and by the rest of the flour I mean the flour that’s in the bag right I’ve got to change sacks it’s it’s important that you understand I started the first batch out of this sack and the

Batch that I have on the mixer now came from this sack and we’re probably Oh an ounce or two off in terms of weight because I use the cup you see so I want to use the bag that goes with this bowl by making sense good now we’ll blend in

The rest of the flour this will take some time so I’ll show you what we finally wind up with I usually make an enormous mess when I make bread that’s the fun part and yes I do get my hands into this eventually I love it I’m gonna show you what happens

Blending the rest of the flour knead that for a time about five minutes on the machine about 15 minutes by hand and you’ll wind up with a dough that’s simply gorgeous let me show you let it rise then for an hour or two or two

Hours I guess and then you can punch it down look what you get I just throw a mine on the counter you see I just spit it on the Formica that’s what this is you see just plastic counter came here at you and then I put a bowl over the

Top it’s much easier to handle that way you see a good dough a good dough doesn’t stick to your fingers unless someone’s watching you on television then of course it sticks to the wall boards and everything all right here we go let’s knead that down you got the recipe

Two and a half cups of water I’m gonna knead this for a bit now just so that we can become friends you see two and a half cups of water two pounds three ounces of flour exactly two pounds three ounces and that will vary from one else

Depending on the weather if it’s the summertime and the flowers a little bit wetter than it would be or if it’s heavy rain in the winter time you see you have to you may want to vary that by an ounce you’ll get into it I use gentle about

Two pounds three ounces and then the teaspoon of water and a teaspoon of salt and you blend the flour into the water solution by four Cup units start with the four cups first into the water and yeast two packages of yeast then let that go for about ten minutes on your machine so

That it’s good and goo it make gluten you see when that’s finished then you put in the teaspoon of water mixer the teaspoon of salt and then eventually need in the rest of your flour let it rise for two hours under a bowl on the board punch it down let it

Rise a second time punch it down the second time and you’re ready to mold your lows now you’re gonna say well you’re letting you’re taking a lot of time to let this thing rise well that’s how you get a crust you see you can’t hustle French bread it’s impossible

You’ve got to let it let the flour go into own trip and that means that you’ve got to relax and allow the gluten to form so that you get a nice crunchy crust so this is raised twice you see so now we’re ready let me show you some let

Me show you some shapes here for instance this one is very easy to do you see this is gonna make four loaves by the way if I cut up this big blob of dough I could get four loaves this size and let me show you how to do that it’s very simple

I’m not going to let my good knife cut my touch the marble for heaven’s sakes you’ll wreck the whole place all right we have four loaves out of that batch and to make this particular kind of loaf you see this this one’s the cross on the

Top which I think really kind of pretty simply fold your dough under under under see I’m making a nice round loaf see I’m doing folding it under under my fingers you see nothing to it isn’t this marble a joy nice chunk of marble marbles cold

You see and nothing will stick to it so you don’t have to keep adding a lot of flour there it is now you put this on a bunny up on a pan on the tray and I like to put a little corn flour underneath the thing so let me show you how that’s

Done this is hardly what you call complicated and I get the rolling pin out of here that’s marble – I love it all right so I’m gonna put cornmeal on the bottom white cornmeal on the bottom of my of my little loaf here you see but white cornmeal the bottom and we’re

Gonna put flour on the top and that’s a very simple process you simply roll it in flour the other method of course is to glaze the dough but I don’t like a glaze on this on this classic loaf you see this will swell up and we’ll get this kind of shape

Eventually and it’s I like this this what do you call dusty looking a peasant of flavor that uh appearance at the below fence in that need let the dough rise and after the dough comes to a rise or what an hour and a half maybe not an

Hour shouldn’t a knee longer than about an hour easy let it rise on your pan and then just simply make the cross you just cut the dough after its after its risen you see you just cut the dough like so and it will open up nothing to that one

It’s very simple you make a whole pile of these four out of that batch you see now let me show you another one I’m gonna probably just knead this dough back in and I’m not gonna keep making batches I want you to see the whole works here let me show you another one

That’s really great fun this one is hardly what you call complex now this is two loaves you see into the beautiful loaf see how easy this one is let me show it it’s a snap you simply take a big blob of dough here we go and we need

It up here big blob of dough form it into a ball and we’re gonna take half of the dough here go forming into a ball just as we did before and poke a hole in the center with your thumb you got it you want a great big donut you see and

Then just start working on it and kind of let it hang you see I’m letting the weight the weight toe of the dough kind of pull on itself and just stretch this thing out until you get a great big round circle put that on the tray remember the

Cornmeal now the cornmeal axe is kind of ball bearing underneath the loaf and on and on it goes you see stretch that out it has to be about twice that size and then then when it rises it you’ll have a nice big round lope that’s fun here’s another one it’s

Very very simple to do simply a little bitty roll you see isn’t that a gorgeous little thing and it’s so simple all you do I’m sure you this one all you do is take a small amount of dual you’ll get a good or I suppose a dozen a dozen out of

This batch we roll it in a ball then roll it thusly see that I’m going just to put little ends on it and there he is then later on after it Rises then you can put a cut in it okay roll them in flour cornmeal on the bottom and you’re

All set now let me show you the fancy stuff let me show what by the way if you want to make long loaves of French bread you can buy these pans I don’t really like them these pans leave them you see the bottom doesn’t doesn’t ever really

Cook I want it nice and brown you see how the top is but underneath it’s not right if you’ll just cook them on a regular pan you’ll get a much nicer loaf this is a has a golden glaze honor I simply use egg you see that’s a great

Difference between that and this peasant to peasant color you see just flour this one has egg on it that’s why it looks so glazed see now let me show you another fancy one by the way keep your kids in the kitchen and you do that by getting

Some little bitty pans these are put in put out by hoeing in New Jersey marvelous little pans you didn’t buy them any at the department store give them some dough and let them make their own little bitty loaf look at the size of this critter isn’t it cute and he

Couldn’t has a nice egg glaze on it anything to spend time with the kids and it’ll work and one lady accosted me in the supermarket the other dangers are you’re always talking about my kids my son is 48 what she means is it’s too late you see well it’s not too late with

A grandchildren for heaven’s sakes get them into the kitchen and get them going great fun