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Oct. 18th, 2008 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraaYou can tell you've made a loaf of crisp-crust french bread right when the crust crackles audibly as it cools.
(Gas oven. Put the loaves in cold halfway through their post-shaping bench rise, turn the oven on to 400F, and, this is the secret, while the oven is cold, put a bunch of ice cubes on the floor of the oven. As the oven gets up to temp, the ice cubes will vaporize and make the oven steamy, which will make the crust lovely and crisp. If you're using an electric oven -- or are afraid that this will break your oven, for which I take no responsibility ;) -- you can put an ovensafe baking dish or cast-iron pan full of ice cubes in instead, although I'm not sure it'll produce steam quite as well.)
(Gas oven. Put the loaves in cold halfway through their post-shaping bench rise, turn the oven on to 400F, and, this is the secret, while the oven is cold, put a bunch of ice cubes on the floor of the oven. As the oven gets up to temp, the ice cubes will vaporize and make the oven steamy, which will make the crust lovely and crisp. If you're using an electric oven -- or are afraid that this will break your oven, for which I take no responsibility ;) -- you can put an ovensafe baking dish or cast-iron pan full of ice cubes in instead, although I'm not sure it'll produce steam quite as well.)