Flaweless Homemade Bread - Pain d’Epi

Prep Time: 5 Minutes
Serves: 2 - 12

This easy-to-make homemade bread will have you looking and feeling like a domestic goddess!

10+ years ago my sister-in-law, Alia, gifted me one of the best cookbooks I have ever had the pleasure of using - “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D and Zoe Francois. This is their recipe with a few Flaweless tweaks. ✨

The Master Recipe

This is the base for four 1-pound loaves, including baguettes, boules, a batch of buns or my favorite, the Pain d’Epi.

INGREDIENTS

3 cups lukewarm water

1 Tablespoon granulated yeast

1 1/2 Tablespoons Kosher salt

6 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Cornmeal for pizza peel

METHOD

Place warm water in a 5-quart mixing bowl of a stand mixer fitted with with dough attachment. Water should feel a little warmer than body temperature - about 100 degrees.
Mix in yeast and salt into water.
Stir in flour, mixing until it is uniformly moist with no dry patches. Do not knead. Dough should be wet and loose enough to conform to shape of container.
Cover, but not with an airtight lid.
Let dough rise at room temperature until it begins to flatten on top or collapse, at least 2 hours and up to 5 hours.

Pro Tip: The dough, after rising, can be refrigerated for up to 2 weeks. This master recipe will make many loves of bread so you get to be a rock star, over and over again, for the next two weeks! Given that refrigerated dough is easier to work with than room-temperature dough, I like to refrigerate mine for about 3 hours before forming it into my first loaf.

Pain d’Epi (Wheat Stalk Baguette)

INGREDIENTS

1 grapefruit sized piece of dough from your refrigerated master recipe above

METHOD

Sprinkle the surface of your master recipe dough with flour.
Remove a grapefruit sized piece of dough by grabbing a handful and sniping it off with kitchen sheers.
Sprinkle removed dough with more flour and form it into a loose ball.
Gently stretch the ball into an elongated log, carefully stretching and rolling the dough until it becomes a skinny baguette.
Pinch the ends closed, tapering them to points.
Allow to rest and rise on a corn meal covered cutting board for 30 minutes. Do not slash.
20 minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 450 degrees and place a baking stone on the middle rack; as well as an empty broiler pan on the bottom rack.
Just before baking time, dust your baguette with flour. Using kitchen scissors, cut from the top at a 45 degree angle, into the dough. Be sure not cut through the bottom.
Fold each cut piece over to the side, alternating sides with each cut. Repeat until the entire baguette is cut and Pain d'Epi is formed.
Slide the loaf directly onto the hot stone. Pour 1 cup of hot water into the boiler tray and quickly close the oven door.
Bake for 25 minutes or until the loaf is deeply browned and firm.