Crusty European bread

[PZ]

We love European bread and unfortunately cannot get anything like it in our area. The solution: make our own.  I do not make it (yet), so this is a video of a loaf my wife made

Bread video with sound effects

[Art Blade]

I can't get anything else here.

[PZ]

I wish that were true for me - typically the bread here has as much substance as cotton - soft enough to eat completely without teeth like zwieback soaked in milk

[Art Blade]

I am not sure about other countries in Europe, but Germany alone has uncountable many different types of bread. There's almost no bakery with the same bread as the one next doors. You can get the some of the same bread type again if they're famous. We do get bread rolls and pretzels basically everywhere, too. But the different types of "grey" bread, made of different types of cereal / grain, whatever you want.. rye, wheat, mix of both.. dark, light.. hell, we have hundreds of types of bread in this city alone 

[PZ]

I know - I remember my aunt sending us to the corner bakery every morning for the morning's brötchen. We don't have anything like them here either. I also remember her visiting us here in the States and going to the grocery store - going by each bread, giving it a squeeze, and muttering  "puff-brot" 

[Art Blade]

 

if "puff" isn't English, then in German it may be used for "bloated," like "Puffreis" (puffed rice)

I reckon she thought the bread was too soft

[PZ]

  yes, she thought the bread too soft - like puffed rice, but soft

[Art Blade]

here you can find loads (and loafs) of bread the crust of which could make your teeth snap off 

[PZ]

In know! ... and lament the fact that we cannot get good bread!

[BinnZ]

The bread your wife made looks a lot like Toscane white bread I once made. I have a bread recipes book my parents gave me a long time ago, it has some interesting bread recipes from all over the world. Jammy

[PZ]

Sounds like a great book, BinnZ 

My wife's recipe is simple flour water and yeast, and the texture is excellent.  The best part is the thick substantial crust.

[fragger]

We are lucky to have a good local bakery where I live, almost right around the corner. Some early mornings when the wind blows right I get delicious whiffs of fresh baking coming from it

They don't do anything like the variety my European mates would be familiar with, but they do a pretty good variety nonetheless for a small-town bakery. It's all lovely bread but it's generally in square or round loaves, not like the sort of shape you see in PZ's picture. They do lots of other things including their own excellent meat pies, about a dozen different varieties. My favourite is their Steak Diane pie - in fact I've just decided what I'll be having for lunch later today

Still, you can't go past European countries for top bread - or so I've been told from friends and relatives who have travelled over there. Europeans have been at it for an awfully long time, they should be pretty good at it by now

[Art Blade]

yes, I think that is about right

[PZ]