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French Bread and Peasant Bread aren’t really all that different, other than the touch of rye flour, and a butter soaked crust. It is  basic of basic bread (flour, water, yeast, and salt).

My favorite recipe comes from Rustic European Breads From Your Bread Machine. Called Pain A L’Ancienne in the book, they explain that butter and baguette the loaf is the only difference between Ancient Bread, and Peasant Bread. This recipe in the book, almost seems like an afterthought, thrown in, so I’m going to try and improve on their instructions here.

This bread starts with Sourdough Sponge, like many artisan breads.

• 6 oz Water
• 1/2 C Rye flour
• 1 C Bread flour
• 2 1/2 t Yeast

If you have a bread machine that makes artisan and sourdough breads, set it for sourdough and for 12 hours. For regular bread machines just select dough setting, and just let it rest in the machine overnight. You may want run it twice, to help develop the gluten, in the regular machine or by handwork.

Once we have a 12 to 24 hour old Sponge made, we can finish up this bread.
Add:

• 5 oz warm water
• 2 C Bread flour
• 2 t Salt

That’s it! That’s all there is to it (flour, water, yeast, and salt). Complete the dough process. For those using a regular bread machine, run Dough Only, a third time with these additions.

Preheat Oven and Bread Stone to 420 F degrees. Shape a baguette, cutting the top as fancy as you might like, letting it rise as the oven heats. Bake 20 minutes on the stone. Brush crust with butter, the second you remove it from the oven.

My recipe calls for a little more water than theirs, because I live in California where it’s dry (humidity is only about 6% most of the time, so a lot is lost in steam here). You may want the 5 and 5 or even 5 and 4, depending on where you live.

This is slow recipe to make, no doubt.  But well worth it, for such a simple and awesome bread!

Focaccia is a German bread, pronounced FuknFieldRation.  Ok, I’ll admit that did that to tease Atalian Mothers everywhere!  Atalia, which is right next to Sydney.  And if your thinking linguistically, you will get that joke, when nobody else does (x3 nerd humor).

What is ‘Foc-a-chi-a’?  Quite simply, it’s flat olive oil bread.  And therefore a lot of people think pizza, but no, this is a totally different product than a simple pizza crust.  Pizza crust is actually made with a CHEAP bread.  Olive Oil is hardly cheap.  It is frequently used to serve herbs, like with a Pesto Sauce with olives, nuts, and dry cheeses.  See, totally different than pizza. 

My Focaccia is not exactly pure, either.  I realized a long time ago, that oregano makes the bread better, not the suace.  So, I make mine with the oregano in the bread.  A pure Focaccia would be a big white cracker!

• 1 C water
• 3 C flour
• 1 1/2 t salt
• 2 Tbl extra virgin olive oil (this can be as much as 1/4 C, but with more oil, increase yeast)
• 1 t dried oregano (optional)
• 1 1/2 t Yeast

Set bread machine for dough only.

A basic Focaccia sauce:

• 1 oz exta virgin
• 1 tbl basil
• 2 tbl parsely
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 t kosher salt
• 2 t black pepper
• 1/4 C Parmesan Cheese
• olives

Divide dough in 2.  Roll out to 12 inch rounds.  Finger poke over and over to make moon like creators.  Cover with a towel and let rise a while.  Brush with olive oil, and topping.  Bake 400 degrees for 30 minutes, is the expert instructions. Personally, I prefer it a little shorter, so it’s not a giant hardened cracker, and still a little bread like.

Once you cook that Turkey carcass down to soup, you’ll want some focaccia to go with it, after a cold winter’s shopping run.

I wove this bwead so much, it’s my personal gift to me, every holiday season, or wabbit season. It’s why they grow giant squash in my opinion.

This is a one pound loaf. It’s the recipe that had to be tweaked from the book to be good, so it’s the one that I can kinda call my own, perhaps in an alternate universe:

1 t salt
1/4 c brown sugar
1/4 t ground cloves
1/2 t ground nutmeg
1 t cinnamon
2 eggs (room temp)
1/2 c warm water + 1oz Peanut oil (it easiest to do these together in the measuring cup)
1 c canned pumpkin (that’s half a small can, in case you hadn’t noticed)
3 1/2 c flour (bread or all purpose)
2 t yeast

Set bread machine for dough, or Fruit Bread, and crust to dark.
This is the kind of bread that will explode in your machine and lift the lid off. So frequently I do dough, and divided it into 3 or 4 loafs, that I try to shape like little pumpkins. Bake 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
Dig out the cream cheese, or soft butter, and you’ve got heaven!

Bread Art Print 15.74 in. x 19.67 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed   Mounted

Still Life, Bread Poster 36 in. x 24 in. Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed   Mounted

The holiday seasons have begun! (See my last grumble) And an important part of the holidays is this recipe. This bread is surprisingly popular with my friends. I would have thought more people would object to as strong a flavor as fennel has. They tell me that it’s totally awesome right out of the toaster in the morning. It’s very easy for breadmachines, I make mine with regular white bread settings, nothing more.

* 1 pkg Yeast (1 1/2t)
* 1 t sugar
* 1 C warm water
* 2 t salt
* 2 Tbl butter
* 2 t fennel seed
* 3 C all purpose flour
* 1 egg white

Kneed into dough with the same procedure for any loaf of bread. (Bread newbies can find this information anywhere on the Internet)
Those using a breadmachine will want to keep an eye out for the 3rd Rise, to advance on to the second step. Most breadmachines have charts in their documentation telling you the length of each cycle. Do the math, set a timer.

* 1 egg yoke
* 1 t milk
* 2 t more fennel seeds

Mix yoke and milk.
Brush egg mixture and seeds onto the loaf.
For special occasions as gifts, I make it dough-only, split it into 3 strands, and braid it.
Bake at 375F degrees for 30 minutes- but you can as well, put it back in the bread pan and let the machine bake it!
If you pull the paddle out of the pan, make sure to spray down the post with cooking spray, or it will tear a hole, when you remove it from the pan.

Not to be confused with Raisin Bread X-2000! I know that you have no idea what Raisin X-2000 is, but that’s not the point at the moment. Raisin Bread X-3000 is the simplified version of X-2000, because it requires much smaller rocketry. Raisin Bread is the only bread I can think of that if you read 30 recipes for, you will read 30 UNIQUE recipes for. And this is one of about 3rd I’ve worked on myself. But this is the easiest version of my Raisin Breads.

1 t salt
1/4 c sugar
1 t cinnamon
1 egg
1 1/8 C milk
1 C wheat flour
1 Tbl yeast
2 1/2 all purpose flour
1/2 C raisins
1/4 C raisins (added extras / after kneading)

Use a wheat/dark/fruit bread setting, or set to bread dough only. Single pound loaf. X-3000 was designed for baking in a single bread pan in a toaster oven, so you’re not fighting that paddle hole, when it’s done.
{Baking instructions will follow later (I don’t remember, I’ll have to make one again to jog my memory)}

Brush it with butter while it’s still warm, and you’ve got heaven! This is a loaf that loves butter, and it will eat as much as you can feed it, so go easy on crust, just a light brushing. Or you’ll end up with a trillion calories from fat!

UpDATE:
Ok, I’ve pop one in the oven, again this weekend (11/14). Turned the toaster-oven on 150F degrees, because it has no lower setting, and gave it 15 minutes to rise again, before baking. THIS WAS NOT NEARLY ENOUGH to even activate the Yeast, in a 60 degree Mountain Home. I’m near the bottom of the pound of yeast, and I’m wondering if it’s fizzled, fried, dead? So I go ahead an bake it at 420 degrees, for 20 minutes. Rose right up, to make a fine loaf of bread after that. Crust was a little scared from the toaster oven, it’s just too tight a space. Even though, I did EVERYTHING wrong!

At the last minute I modified the recipe, and tossed in a Pippin Apple. Maybe I should have prepared it first, because like everything I toss, it came flying back at my face with mustard on it! I’m joking, of coarse, there’s no mustard in the recipe, and I pealed, cored, and sliced it first. But then I worried that sugar would not taste right, so I added about a 1/4 C brown sugar (why do you dance so good). And with all fresh apples, you have to view them as being a half cup of water each, so I added a half cup of extra flour, too. Which was not nearly enough, I got batter like you use for Ciabatta bread, but I plowed on anyhow. Formed a bagget out of it, and crisscrossed the top, at least I hope it was the top? Then tried to rise it (see above). Anyway all turned out fine, except that I forgot to put raisins in my raisin bread.