Lean Bread

For some time, I've been trying to create a french baguette at home. The kind of french bread that is crispy on the outside, chewy inside with big holes! This recipe is certainly the easiest yet most successful attempt yet. The recipe requires very little kneading so I just mixed it up in a bowl with a spoon and didn't even get out my mixer. The dough was easy to handle and shape into loaves.

I replaced two cups of white flour with whole wheat flour and decreased the overall flour by 1/3 cup.

I will be making this simple bread again!

This is the first recipe in the book, but one of the last I have attempted. I don’t really know what lean bread is or what it resembles in food stores or restaurants.

It is arguable the simplest recipe in the book, but I would argue there are other easier recipes because while this recipe only requires 4 main ingredients, it is pretty tacky and sticky, which makes it difficult to handle.

I proofed the dough in a flour sack laid inside a bowl and dusted with tons of flour. Even tons of flour couldn’t prevent this dough from sticking to the towel. The whole top was completely stuck and I was able to barely get the towel removed from the top, but it did create a rather bizarre look to the dough, since some of it was pierced and some was super stretched out from being pulled away from the towel.

The recipe suggests baking for 20 to 27 minutes, but unlike the Pain a l’Ancienne Rustic Bread, there is a suggested temperature of 200 to 205 degrees for the finished bread. After about 18 minutes the crust was a rich golden brown and its’ temperature was 205 degrees.

This bread was excellent and one of my favorites in the whole book. The outside was nice and crusty and the inside was soft, a little spongy and filled with tons of holes. It is very similar inside to the Pain a l’Ancienne Rustic Bread (Ciabatta), but wasn’t as crusty on the outside, but that is probably because I overcooked the Ciabatta and the Lean Bread was cooked perfectly.

This bread is also great dipped in olive oil and with wine and cheese.

The stretch-and-fold technique is brilliant, and this recipe makes for an easy bread to fit into a busy schedule. My DH decided to surprise me with a huge sack of AP flour, and following instructions on the internet, I supplemented 1T vital wheat gluten/C flour to convert some into bread flour. It seemed to work well, I could easily see the gluten strands as I formed the loaves.

If you also decide to convert AP into bread, the one caution I found on line is to mix the flour/gluten mixture very well before adding liquids. Otherwise, the gluten will form thick ropes that are difficult to incorporate into the flour.