Your friendly neighborhood Baking Fool can successfully make all manner of cakes, cookies, pies, ice cream, muffins and scones, but I have a weakness, and it is bread. Not quick bread mind you, but anything that contains yeast and must rise is my nemesis. Now some of my astute readers will remember that I was able to make brioche but that was a rare (very rare) 'B+' in a long, history of 'C's, 'D's and 'F's. And oh yes, and let's not forget a couple of 'F' minuses. To me, there's nothing worse than a bad loaf of bread, especially when you've spent all day making it.

I decided that some professional help was in order. I signed up for a two-day class called "Bread Basics Workshop" at a local cooking school hoping that "basic" meant suitable for amateurs and those expert in making flat, dense, not-very-tasty loaves that hardly rise. Since I've just finished taking the class I can report that, happily, I fit right in.

Day one began with a brief lecture/discussion of measuring, types of flour, varieties of yeast, temperatures, and types of dough. I learned some important things about keeping yeast alive and happy. After this, it was off to the kitchen to get started on our first creation, the baguette.

Baguette (French Bread)

• 21 oz. water, lukewarm (100 - 150°F)
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 32 oz. bread flour
• 4 teaspoons salt
  

Directions:

• Stir the yeast into the warm water and let if proof until foamy, about 5 - 10 minutes.
• Mix the flour and salt together.
• Add the proofed yeast (aka the yeast in the water) to the flour mixture.
• Using the dough hook of an electric mixer on a low speed, bring the ingredients together into a dough ball.
• Let the machine knead the dough for 5 - 10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic.
• Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
• Let rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk.
• Punch down the dough.
• Divide the dough in half, reserve half in the fridge or freezer for tomorrow or the next time you make baguettes.
• With the other dough, you can do a second rise or just skip to the next step.
• Split remaining dough in two.
• Preheat your oven to 500°F.
• Shape each half by doing 2 "letter" folds. Imagine a sheet of paper folded in three to fit a business sized envelope. That's what you want to do to the dough. You should let your dough rest for 5 - 10 minutes between each fold.
• Shape your loaf: use your hands to roll each piece into a 12 - 18 inch baguette. It should be about an inch to 2 inches in diameter. Roll the ends into small points and pinch them closed.
• Move your loaves onto the back of a cookie sheet covered with a sheet of parchment paper.
• Cover them lightly with plastic wrap and let them rise at room temperature until a light finger poke in the dough almost disappears. The dough should be noticeably increased but not too "poofy." OR, wrap completely and retard in the fridge over night.
• When the dough is proofed, slash the tops and put them in the oven.
• Using a spray bottle filled with water, spritz the back of the oven with 1/8 cup of water.
• Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or when the internal temperature reaches 200°F.
• Remove from oven and let cool completely before slicing.

About this recipe: the first thing you'll notice is that measurements are given by weight not volume. Apparently, measuring by volume is not precise enough andmeasuring by weight is really the only way to go. We had nice little digital scales so this was no problem during the class. I don't have a scale at home but I'll be getting one soon.

Though there are a lot of steps, everything is actually very easy, albeit time consuming. This is definitely a weekend or mental-health-day activity. Using an electric mixer relegates the bread chef to the job of measuring out ingredients and proofing the yeast. Our instructor told us that if you do this by hand, you'll have to knead for about twice as long. Good luck with that.

"Room temperature" is variable and we put our doughs out on a shelf above a warm stove where I would guess the temperature was around to 75 - 80 degrees. We only did one rise for our baguettes but our instructor said that if you have the time (and the patience) yous should do two rises. Just push the dough flat into the bowl with your hand to let out the air and then cover it and leave it until it rises again.

Once our dough was ready to be shaped, we flattened it onto the work surface into a rough rectangle and then folded one end about 2/3 of the way over into the middle, stretching it as we did so, and then did the same with the other end, folding it over to the other edge. This is one "letter" fold. Then we let it rest again for 10 minutes and did it again, this time turning our seam to the top or bottom before folding the sides in again. After this fold, we pinched the seam shut, let it rest again and after another 10 or so minutes, and then rolled it into a baguette shape.

After, the dough must rise again in its new shape so it's back to resting at room temperature for a while. You see why this is a weekend activity? Once it was ready, we had to slash the top, slide our loaves into the oven, and pour a small amount of water (maybe a quarter cup) into a cookie sheet that was at the bottom of the oven in order to give our little loaves a bit of a steam bath at the beginning so that the crust form too quickly giving us dense loaves that don't rise at all.

The result: all I have to say is, have you ever seen such a nice looking pair of baguettes? My bread-making partner and I had a nice success with our first effort. I brought my baguette to my former roomie's new house along with the other bread we made that day, where it was promptly devoured. I got no complaints so I assume people liked it (although one must take into account that they were hungry and it was homemade and free, but I digress). I enjoyed my slice very much. The crust was very crisp and hard (due, says the instructor, to the one, quick rise) but the center was soft and full of airy holes.

We made two other breads on day one: whole wheat bread with pecans and dried cherries and soft dinner rolls. The method was similar to making a baguette, although obviously, with different ingredients and we made different shapes. For the wheat bread, we decided on boules, which is "ball" in French. This bread was the favorite among the group.

The dinner rolls were entertaining because we made them by rolling 4, 2 oz. balls of dough, placing three in the bottom of a muffin pan cup and one one top:

So, in summary, day one was a success. In addition to making 3 yeast-leavened breads without being reduced to tears or setting something on fire, I met and worked with a group of very nice people who also wanted to learn to make bread--what could be better?