French Bread

Nothing compares to the bread in France. Hot, fresh baguettes really are worth all the hype and if they didn't get as hard as baseball bats w/in a few hours, i would have packed an entire suitcase full to bring home with me. In response to numerous conversations as to what makes bread in certain areas taste better than in others - it's the water! the flour! the yeast! - I decided to bring some French yeast back with me and conduct some experiments here. I've been using three French bread recipes with limited success: the baguette recipe from French Women Don't Get Fat, Foodiefarmgirl's reprinted 4-hour baguette, and a "Crusty French Bread" recipe that came with my Williams Sonoma baguette pan. Of the 3 of them, I like Foodiefarmgirl's ad the William Sonoma recipe the best, and have made the Williams Sonoma recipe most often. My plan was to make 2 loaves, each with a different yeast, but otherwise the same ingredients, rising time, etc, and then compare the two breads.

Yeast: Red Star (American), and Vahine (French)
Flour: King Arthur all-purpose white flour
Water: I seriously considered also using bottled evian water for the real French thing, but then common sense kicked in and I stuck with my Britta filtered water
Salt: Morton's

Red Star Batch
-Yeast: The yeast sat in 110 F water for about 10 min and had a strong yeasty smell with a frothy head, but only about 3 mm thick.
-Kneading: After the initial fermentation and mixing/kneading with no additional flour (kitchenaid, 10 min on med-low), the dough looked like a solid baseball. It was denser and heavier than any other time I've made the recipe. I have no idea what caused it to be this way and decided that the kitchenaid was the root of the evil that could hopefully be expelled via hand kneading. After about 7 min or kneading it softened up a bit and gained some elasticity. i thought about abandoning at this point, but then laziness kicked in and I decided to stick with what I had
-Rising: The dough doubled in bulk, but was still only 1/2 to 2/3 of the size of the Vahine yeast. However, the textures of the dough after the 2nd rise were more similar
-Baking: My Red Star loaf was small and denser but baked nicely.
-End result: about 20% smaller than the Vahine loaf, denser and less chewy, but overall more flavorful. The balance of yeast and salt just tasted better. The crust looked smooth and shiny and was a little dry but still chewy.

Vahine Batch
-yeast: The yeast sat in 110 F water for about 15 min. After 10 min it looked milky but not very frothy. After 15 min it was 1/2 froth and 1/2 liquid. This yeast has a wonderful sweet, lactose like smell
-Kneading: This kneaded up (7 min in kitchenaid on med/low) like all of my other batches. It was very sticky and required adding and additional 100g of flour (recipe allows for this based on texture). Nervous about my kitchaid's kneading techniques, I took this dough out after 7 min and hand kneaded it for 7 -10 in until ti was a beautiful shiny elasticy dough.
-Rising: this yeast rose like many of my other attempts at this (previously done with Red Star yeast). Good risings, great doubling, wonderful smell - sweeter than the Red Star
-Baking: my loaf ended up larger than than the Red Star and I was able to slash into it beautifully. At this point, I was sure the Vahine would blow the Red Star out of the water.
-End result: a stretchier dough with a few holes but not that much less dense than the red star loaf. The crust ended up looking less smooth and even than the Red Star. The taste was good, but a bit bland. I might add more salt to see if that brings out the flavor. I had a harder time tasting the yeast flavor. however, that might be because I am not used to this yeast. Fellow taste-tester who grew up in France with Vahine yeast said she could taste it prominently.

Final Take:
I think the Vahine would be a great yeast for challah. i think the Red Star could have used a longer "prepping" time to get frothier and that that may make a difference prior to the fermentation. The Vahine was wonderful to work with, but I wasn't as crazy of the final flavor. It's possible that adding another 1/4 tsp of salt would help bring out some of the flavor in the yeast. In the final analysis, neither tasted like, or had the texture of, the French bread you get in France. Which leads me to believe that I may need to experiment with different flours and possibly recipes. I'm currently on the look out for a good bread recipe that starts with a starter to give it the stronger yeast flavor. Texture wise, I'm looking for something that will give a good crust and lots of holes inside the actual loaf.

In round 2 I will bring out another French yeast and see how the tastes between the two French versions compare. In round 3, I will go for a recipe with a biga or starter, and round 4 will be either a brioche or a challah.