I hadn't planned on making these as the kids and I took turns to fall ill. After receiving my baking stone from US, I was actually rather nervous at the thought of making French breads. I was very tempted of course, because father likes these kind of crusty breads and I would gladly bake for him. However, it seemed rather challenging to make French breads given the moulding, shaping and scoring. I went ahead anyway but without the pressure to produce them for class critique, but just to put the baking stone to trial.
The crack appeared during baking and I wondered why. When I put the question to Chef Daniel, he revealed that the crack was the sealed part of the shaped dough which should have been sitting below. I may have overlooked and somehow it slanted and exposed itself and thus resulted in the crack when baking. Both the Fecile and Pain Levain didn't bloom as they suppose to be. That, according to Chef Daniel, was because my scoring wasn't deep enough. In addition, he commented that the Pain Levain was slightly heavier than it supposed to be and that meant that the bread was underproofed. Boy, was he right! I remembered setting the proofing time for 105 minutes for the Fecile and 90 minutes for the Pain Levain. The latter was suppose to proof for another 15 minutes but I didn't.I'm glad I baked and brought the breads to the class today. I'd really learned a lot from him. I think he was right to say that ' they(the students who had baked and showed him the breads) have done their homework, so they have learned more.'
These were baked during the class last month by Chef Daniel. They are my ultimate goal.
