How To Bake Crusty Bread

Since we moved in the UK last year, we bake our own bread all the time. We just can’t get used to white loaf. French bread is actually one of the few things we miss here.

The good thing with baking your own bread is that you can try different types easily. So far, we’ve tried Guinness bread and soda bread but most of the time we use our “standard” recipe using a mix of white and wholemeal flour, to which I sometimes add nuts (hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds…), olives and dried tomatoes for a Mediterranean twist, or seeds (sesame, poppy for example). You can also try sweet versions with chocolate, coconut, raisins… It’s your call!

However, Nicolas pointed out the other day that something was still missing… a crusty crust! So I made a bit of research and tried again. And this time, I (almost) did it!

I baked 2 baguettes (recipe here in French) and to get a good crust I brushed them with water before baking them and added a bowl of water in the oven to create humidity. The result is not perfect but it’s definitely an improvement (even though it’s not obvious on the pictures…).