Crusty French Boules

My bread-baking efforts, lately, haven't been all that rewarding, and of all the kinds of baking we do, it seems to me that making yeast breads really should be. A  little bit of calm, comfortable, relaxing work, a little bit of art mixed in with the science, all to end in one of the most wonderful smells your kitchen can have and a basic food risen {oh...sorry!} to new heights.

But if I needed a recipe with just enough of 'rewarding' to encourage me to keep trying, not to mention an excellent, simple bread to add to my repertoire, this one would be it.  It starts a day or two ahead with a pate fermentee {a little dough 'starter'), to add extra flavor, and adds some  tips (a pan of water in the oven, and a spritz of water on the risen boules before they go into the oven) to ensure a crisp crust.  What came out of the oven were two small {and that's a little bit of a downside...I want to experiment with forming this amount of dough into one larger loaf}, golden, almost hard-crusted {though the crust does soften a as the bread cools), pretty loaves, with a firm {that is, not airy/holey) crumb that (at the same time) isn't too dense.  This bread would be great for toasting, or for reasonably-sized sandwiches, or even for croutons.

But what happens before it goes into the oven is even better. This bread was so easy to make, and there wasn't even anything messy {like a flour-covered counter, or a flour-covered shirt} to clean up.  After the pate fermentee has fermented (?), there's just six minutes of kneading in a stand mixer, a rise, a simple shaping into two boules, and a second rise. It was an incredibly beautiful dough to work with, doing everything it was supposed to, and soft and supple in my hands as I shaped it.  To be honest, I'm not sure it's the best bread I'll ever make, or ever taste, but it's very, very good, and a great recipe and method to have on hand.

The recipe for Crusty French Boules, from the November issue of Cooking Light, is posted here. {I'm sending these loaves to Yeastspotting, a weekly collection of yeast bread recipes}.