Rustic French Bread

I go through bread phases. Sometimes I can’t get enough of it and then I go months before I make it again. I’m in a bread phase right now and I’m making (and blogging!) a lot of bread. Fresh bread straight from the oven can’t be beat.

This is one of our family favourite bread recipes. The original recipe and method came with our swish new bread machine sent to us by the lovely Bestemor from Norway when she heard our old machine had died. It’s a fantastic Panasonic SD-2501 and I love it to bits. It’s got loads of settings, including one specifically for French bread! However, I prefer to use the dough setting and then shape and form the loaf by hand into a nice traditional non-bread machine-shaped loaf to bake in the oven. The loaf tastes the same, either way, but I like the look of a hand-shaped loaf,so I’ve adapted the recipe method to reflect this.

The bread itself is remarkably light for a bread recipe containing wholemeal and rye flours. It’s a perfect bread to dunk into hot soup on a cold Autumnal day and it’s perfect made into sandwiches or served in generous slices with chunks of cheese on picnics in the summer.

I am sending this recipe over to Alphabakes, a monthly food blogging challenge co-hosted by The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline Makes. This month The More Than Occasional Baker has given us the letter R to work with. We have to make and share recipes which include an ingredient, or have a title, with the letter R in it. This Rustic French Loaf contains rye flour, so that meets the criteria.

At the lovely request of Carole (see Comments below) I have added this recipe to the French Food on Friday round-up over at Carole’s Chatter.