How To make French Bread

How To make French Bread

Let’s face it. You usually interchange French bread and baguette when referring to that long stick of crispy bread in the bakery. But which is which actually?

French bread actually refers to any shape and any crust and is more descriptive of what’s IN the bread. By law, French bread should just be flour, water, yeast, salt and a tiny bit of ascorbic acid (Vit. C. That’s it. No oil, no fat. The French word for French bread is actually Pain (“pan”).

You don’t expect the French to call their bread “French bread”, right? Any variation of the French bread stales quickly and only lasts about a day at most. So the locals usually pay a visit to the local “Boulangerie” (bakery) daily for consumption. It’s eaten at all meals, and forms the most important part of healthy breakfast.

Now, a baguette refers to a specific shape of the French bread. It’s a long stick and is distinguishable by its length, very crisp crust and slit cuts. Its standard diameter is 5 to 6 cm but be as long as meter in length.

There are other types of French bread. Here are some of the most common ones:

Boule – A loaf (round) made in various sizes.
Ficelle – Very thin version of the baguette. Ficelle is a French term for “string”
Fougasse – A flat rectangular bread often filled with bacon, onion or herbs.
Pain de mie – Packaged white sliced bread; a soft sweet loaf mainly used for sandwiches.
Pain au chocolate – Bread filled with chocolate chips
Pain aux noix – Bread filled with nuts.
Pain aux raisins – A light bread filled with raisins. A breakfast treat.
Pain bio – A bread with at least 95%PRCTG% organic ingredients
Pain de siegle – Loaf with two thirds rye flour, one third wheat flour.
Pain viennois – baguette-shaped but softer and sweeter.
Pain d’