Pain

(Bread)

Bread is one of the main component of French food. It is not used in many recipes but in fact, a French meal must be served with bread (Bread can probably be compared with Rice in Japanese meals). There are many different recipes of bread in France. The one below is one of the easiest. You can eat bread either with a main dish or just with [French] cheese.

To prepare one loaf of bread you need: Flour (250g), Sugar (4 tea spoons), Salt (a bit), Water (one glass), baking powder (1 or 2 tea spoons) and yeast (1/3 bag).

In a small bowl mix the yeast with two spoons sugar and two spoons of cold water. Then add one fourth of glass of hot water (it is important to have added the cold water first else you would kill you yeast with the hot water).

In a big bowl put 200g of flour, salt and 1 spoon of backing powder. Mix well and add the content of the small bowl (yeast and sugar). Mix again. The content must still but fluid. If it is hard to mix, you must add a bit of water (else the yeast won't grow) but do not add too much water.

Once it is well mixed (and still fluid), let it wait for one hour. After 15 minutes you must check that the bread has started growing. Else you must add baking powder and/or water.

Take a baking pan and put oil on it then spread flour on the oil (so the bread won't stick to the pan).

After one hour put the dough in the baking pan. It will become much smaller. Wait one more hour to let it grow and then you can start baking it for 45 minutes at 200 degrees.

After 45 minutes the bread should be ready.

Note that the cooking time depends a lot on the oven. The yeast quality may also affect a lot the result.