European-Style Bread

I have been baking bread like a fiend lately. And it all started with this recipe for Crusty French Bread on fellow blog For the Love of Cooking. 

I decided to make some fresh bread to go with soup at a dinner party with friends, and amongst my bookmarked recipes, this one seemed to fit the bill. The interesting aspect to this recipe is that there is an additional rise compared to most other recipes (3 instead of 2)--you let your nicely kneaded dough rise once to doubling, punch it down and let it rise again, then form the loaves and then let it proof/rise AGAIN, and then finally bake.

But the extra rise is well worth the wait. The bread is soft and moist but with a wonderful spring and tenacity to it, and a thin but crispy crust. I brushed the crust with some egg white wash and created some steam for the early part of the baking time by pouring some water into a preheated pan on the bottom rack of the oven underneath the baking bread. This kept the dough surface flexible enough to expand/puff more in the oven before the crust set, and then made the crust a little thicker and shinier in the end product. I made it a little healthier by using half white whole wheat flour (you can get King Arthur brand white whole wheat flour at some grocery stores or at a well-stocked Super WalMart). Otherwise I stayed pretty close to the recipe linked above.

It was so tasty that we finished up the rest of the batch of bread left over from the dinner party in about a week, and by the next weekend I was itching to make another batch.

The second time, I made a couple thin, long rolls for...meatball sandwiches!!

Homemade meatballs + homemade bread = BEST meatball sandwich EVER. Life is good.