Choosing authentic French bread involves identifying traditional ingredients and feeling the weight and texture of the loaf. A good loaf should have a thick, chewy crust and a dense, ribbon-like interior with air pockets. Avoid loaves with added sweeteners or chemicals.
Choosing the best French bread can be a matter of individual taste, particularly as commercially baked loaves sometimes blur the definition of authentic French bread into reality. In general, French bread that is made in the more traditional way will have a more classic taste and texture. Identifying the ingredients used to make the bread can help determine how the bread was assembled, with chemicals and oils indicating that the bread may be more like plain, soft white bread. When buying bread like this, the crust should feel soft, but still have good firmness when pressed. A good loaf of bread prepared French-style shouldn’t feel overly heavy or overly light for its size.
The ingredients used to make French bread can help determine if it was made in a traditional style. The simplest type of bread dough contains water, flour, salt, and a dry starter or yeast. Sometimes additional ingredients, such as oil, may appear, but they can also make the texture of the bread a little different from classic recipes. If the bread is filled with sweeteners, emulsifiers, or other ingredients whose purpose is unclear, it most likely won’t have the taste or texture of a classic French loaf, despite its appearance.
Picking and feeling the bread can reveal a good deal of how a loaf was made. The goal of French bread is to have a thick crust on the outside that is chewy and soft yet thick enough to be tough. Any ridges, lines, or baker’s cuts at the top of the loaf should be baked into firm, lightly browned ridges. Bread so soft that it can compress significantly is not true French bread and should be avoided in your search for an authentic loaf.
The weight of the French bread can be used to determine what it is like on the inside. When done the traditional way, the inside of the loaf will have many air pockets with a dense ribbon-like dough pattern in between. This means that a good loaf should feel suitably heavy for its size. If the dough feels too light, the inside may be excessively dry or airy, sometimes due to some commercial leavening methods. Dense, heavy loaves might be very meaty and might have a sticky interior and a strong flour-like flavor, which is generally not desirable in French bread.
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