re: Leidenheimer french bread

Where can you buy it in DFW?

A few months ago I was researching Bahn Mi loaves because of how similar they are to po'boy bread.

I watched a few videos on YouTube to understand the process and then went about recreating them, using basic bread making techniques.

Next time, I don't think I will slash them.




Here's the recipe and process

Bahn Mi
Ingredients:
Bread flour - 500 gr
Water - 265 ml
Bread improver - 5 gr
Yeast - 5 gr
Salt - 10 gr
Sugar - 5 gr
Butter - 25 gr
Egg - one extra large

Process:
Preheat oven to 400°F, move the rack to the middle of the oven, and place an oven safe pan of water in the bottom for steam.

Mix yeast into warm water (90 - 110°F), if using dry active, and set aside.

Combine flour, dough improver, sugar, & salt in a mixing bowl and blend to combine.

Pour melted butter into flour and blend until flour no longer looks wet.

Add yeast water and, eggs then mix for 10-12 minutes on speed one (speed 2-4 if using kitchen aid)

Increase speed to 2 and mix 6-8 minutes until smooth and elastic. Should form a nice windowpane when stretched. (speed 6 if using kitchen aid)

Remove dough and round into a ball and place in well-greased bowl, spray top with non-stick spray, cover with plastic, and rest until double in size. (I have a proofer and set it at 90°F with 100% humidity).

After dough doubles in size, punch down and dump out dough then divide into 150g portions and round. (I retarded the dough overnight, but you could just rest it for 30 minutes to an hour.)

Shape dough and spray with water, leave in a warm place to ferment until doubled in size. Keep it moist, don't let the surface dry out.

Spray with water & score the bread with one continuous cut the entire length of the loaf.

Place in oven and bake at 400°F for 25-30 minutes.

Spray with additional water every 5 minutes for the first 20 minutes of baking.

Remove water tray 5 minutes before end of baking to promote browning.


Here are the YouTube videos I consulted for the process.
Aimee's Cooking

Aimee's Cooking (w/o narration)

Helen's Recipes

Next time I may incorporate a autolyse step to see if anything changes. I way also use distilled water and an acidifier to raise the pH of the water.

Overall the bread was light and airy with a thin crust that crumbled and crunched. They did get a little soft after storing them in bags overnight but, a quick 5 minute ride in a 350°F oven crisped them back up.

Big Dropper has the right idea: look at bahn mi recipes. Those will give you a texture closest to Leidenheimer’s style French bread. I’m a baker, so this is legit info, not BS hearsay.
—NO air/water/ humidity have nothing to do with the qualities of local French bread..
—the thin, light, shattering crust is a product of a steam injected oven, and a dough that rises to about 90% of its max expansion during the final rise, and thus has minimal oven spring.
—read the label of Leidenheimers and you’ll see that it’s loaves contain chemical dough conditioners which promote rising and make the dough more extensible (stretchier, so it can make an exceptionally lofty/airy loaf.
—older school poboy loaves and French bread like Binders and LeJeunes (from Jeanerette) generally do not contain dough conditioners bc those bakeries are lower volume production and not trying to rush the process. Their crusts are a bit thicker too.

Andrea Nguyen’s bahn mi cookbook contains an excellent, detailed recipe for bahn mi loaves, which will get you pretty damn close to the NO poboy loaf type texture. Forget using baguette recipes—a real baguette is very different in texture, and figure out how to get steam on your loaves for the first part of the bake. Many diff techniques for introducing steam in a home oven, ranging from a cast iron pan full of lava rocks plus boiling water to baking inside a closed vessel. Right now, I’m using a covered granite ware Turkey roaster with a baking stone inside of it propped atop two short lengths of angled aluminum. I preheat the roaster/stone, then when I load the bread, I pour boiling water in the bottom of the roaster and pop on the lid.

quote:

---

It's been said it is not very easy to get the same results due to our being below sea level and having pretty high humidity on a daily basis, and those two factors help make our French breads what they are.

---

I’m not sure what sea level has to do with it unless the gravity difference does something to the rising time.

If humidity really mattered, you’d see a difference in quality with bread baked in January vs bread baked in July.

quote:

---

Where can you buy it in DFW?

---

Bayou Seafood in Lewisville

I've never understood how people can claim it's the river water that makes Leidenheimer so good. I don't know what the secret is, but I doubt it's dirty arse, fertilized water from the muddy Mississippi.

You would have to import some authentic nola tap water to truly replicate it

Hey Bubba,

I was searching online for Lidenheimers French Bread, we lived in Metairie and moved to McKinney 20 years ago, and I ran across your inquiry. Have you had any luck finding a good French bread in the greater DFW area? I would greatly appreciate any insight, it seems like a major PITA to make.

Thanks!

quote:

---

Anova makes a home combination steam oven.

---

I have one of these and it's ok. A dutch oven will usually provide a better crust than what I've been able to get with the Anova. And the water tank cracked as well. And you have to use an app to get the most out of it, and I can't get mine to join my wifi network.