The Perfect Bread Recipe (and It's From France...Of Course!)

I've made a lot of bread in my life.

My mom taught me how to make her high-rising dinner rolls. They have become my must-make dish for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Her dinner rolls are the best.

My Aunt Marie taught me how to make her cornbread. Her cornbread is the best.

My grandma taught me to make her country breakfast biscuits. Her biscuits are the best.

Ever since I went to France in 2010, I've wanted to be a master bread baker. I've experimented here on my blog with lots of good bread recipes: Pain Français; Fougasse au Romarin (Rosemary Fougasse) from Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris; and The Pioneer Woman vs. Grandma.

But I wanted a crusty outside and a soft inside. I was frustrated and nothing seemed to work.

Me, Leslie from Under the Apple Tree, and Emma from Words and Peace at BookExpo in Chicago last year.

Then I met Emma. I met her at BookExpo when it was in Chicago last year. Emma is a blogger at Words and Peace and she runs book tours at France Book Tours. Emma is from France. Emma shared a bread recipe that has changed my life. The recipe is the recipe used by a group of monks in a monastery in France. I can't explain it, but it is almost as if the happy peace and joy of the monastery has somehow soaked into this recipe. The bread comes out perfectly every time.

Can it get any simpler than this?

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour 
• 1/4 teaspoon yeast 
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups very warm water

Instructions:

1. Mix flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add water and mix.
2. Cover with plastic wrap. Let dough sit at room temperature for 3 hours.
3. After 3 hours, move it to a well-floured surface. Fold dough and shape into a ball.
4. Place in a parchment paper-lined bowl and cover with a towel. Let stand on counter top for about 35 minutes.
5. In the meantime, place Dutch oven with lid in a cold oven and preheat to 450° F.
6. When oven reaches 450° carefully, using oven gloves, place parchment paper and dough from the bowl gently into the hot pot. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
7. Take off lid. Return, uncovered, to oven and bake 10-15 more minutes.

The old cast iron Dutch oven is perfect for baking crusty bread. Beautiful, isn't it?

 And the taste? Magnifique!

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

Saturday Snapshot is now hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky below. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

Please join the weekly meme at An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Il est Juillet et il est temps pour le merveilleux Paris in July hosted by Thyme for Tea! (*It is July and it is time for the wonderful Paris in July!)