French Medieval Bread Fouées

For over a year now I've been baking all sorts of flatbreads, some great successes, some ended up glued to the ceiling with curses to make a Byelorussian lorry driver blush. But I found one that is extremely simple to make and very reliable. You can do this for tea, to go with starters, with a curry or even just for breakfast. Unfortunately it does call for a seriously hot oven, the kind that is fired by wood.

The story goes that when medieval French bakers had finished shaping their breads and watched them proving on the bench while the oven slowly reached its baking temperature, they would take little pieces of the remaining dough, stretch it roughly and throw it in the oven to test its temperature. Then they would eat these breads for their morning break. They called them fouées, from a root shared with other, different breads, such as fougasse or focaccia. But call this a foccaccia, or worse, a pita, and any self-respecting French baker will reach for his baking peel with fire in his eyes.

This is the simplest bread I bake. Just take 1kg of bread flour (no less than 100gr of flour per person) ...

... then add between 20gr 50gr of fresh yeast ...

... which you will crumble with a handful of flour like so. Very tactile, sensual and most cheffy.

Add 15gr to 20gr of salt, then 700gr (7dl) of water.

People who speak about bread like others compare baseball players of car specs will say that this is a "2-2-70 bread". 2% of salt, 2% yeast, 70% of water, expressed as percentage of the flour you use. Lots of scales can show a weight as a percentage of something you measured before, then press SET. So I would dump some flour in the bowl, tell the balance to call this 100%, then add salt until it says 2%, and so on.

Mix, preferably with a dough hook or by hand if you must, until it makes like strands of gluten like here, about 5 minutes.

Then leave it until it doubles. This is where I get asked the "how long" question. A fair question, but the answer is invariably "it depends". Let me explain. On a cold winter day, using cold water, it may take 3 or 4 hours for the dough to double. But on a hot summer day, with lukewarm water, within one hour the dough will start going over. This is not a problem - all you need to do is accept this biological process of the yeast cells multiplying faster when it's warmer, and after a couple times you've baked bread you'll anticipate. Oh it's a warm day and I can't bake before noon - then use ice cold water and if it goes too fast, put the dough in the fridge. Or "oh good Lord I'm late the guests will be around in an hour" - use warmish water and keep the dough in a warm place. Obviously this is only the very basics of breadmaking and longer rise, overnight in the fridge with ice-cold water, will yield more interesting flavors. But you have a lifetime of breadmaking before you so let's start on making this simple, fun and delicious bread.

Don't miss the pictures of the actual baking on the next page!

Check that the oven sole is around 350C to 400C. Yes that's really hot, about the temperature you would use to bake a real pizza in fact. Too cool an oven and the bread will not color as fast - not as tasty too. You can certainly bake these with a fire still on in a corner of the oven.

Dust the counter close to the oven with flour, making sure your hands are covered as well. All you do is take an orange-size piece of dough, roll it a bit in flour so that it doesn't stick too much, then...

...stretch it by pulling it between your hands.

Come to the entrance of the oven and concentrate - you need to be one with the dough...

...then throw it like a frisbee so that it remains flat during its flight and ends up in some place flat and free of embers on the oven sole. This may take a couple times until you get it right but is is seriously fun! If one folds up upon arrival, either leave it like this or use some tool to try and uncoil it as best you can. On the picture you can actually the bread during its maiden (and ultimate) flight, just on the right of my hand here.

On a 400C sole it takes about 2 minutes for the bread to pop up like a baloon! No peel, no board, no nothing. Just throw it like a frisbee. A most enjoyable revenge of the trickiness of baking bread in a wood-fired oven - this one is just so simple.

Spin the bread 180 degrees after a couple minutes, when it has started ballooning, so that no side burns waiting for the other side to cook...

... then remove it from the oven.

Voilà!

You can make them any shape you like, small or bigger, and even with a hole in the middle.

I often serve it with starters.

How about that? Cooked right before the guests and served piping hot, with the total absence of stress of one who follows a recipe seen on FXcuisine.

This is one here was baked at 350C, I prefer the darker crust. Stretching the dough flatter tends to create a large cavity in the bread as the steam fills up the microscopic holes made by the yeast - ideal to make a really sexy sandwich.

For an oriental meal I just wet the top of the stretched dough ball and sprinkle with nigella or sesame seeds before throwing it in the oven. Wish you could taste it!

Please consider that for 20 years I have yearned for a wood fired oven and that it took me several years to build one. If this article creates cookware envy, harness it to push you towards find a way to make, buy or borrow one yourself!