Keeping up with the bread

Sometimes we just can't keep up with the bread. The bread lady — la porteuse de pain — comes by on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We buy what we want from her. We try to buy something every time she comes by, because bread delivery is a use-it-or-lose-it kind of service. We don't want the village baker to stop delivering bread.

Leftover baguette de tradition

Most days we opt for a traditional style baguette (we pay 1 €). Sometimes we choose an ordinary baguette (0.85 €), which comes in two styles: moulée or non-moulée. The first, cooked in a mold, is softer (plus tendre). The second, cooked directly on the stone or brick floor of of the bread oven, has a crunchier bottom crust. Once in a while we buy a pain, which is a larger loaf made in the same styles as the baguette ordinaire. Here's a post about the bread lady from 2007.

Every once in a while, we take stock and realize we have a ton of bread in the freezer. That's how we preserve the bread that's left over, because we seldom eat a whole baguette in one day. The frozen bread, thawed over an hour or two at room temperature and then briefly heated up in the oven, is perfectly good. That's what we have on Wednesdays, Sundays, and Mondays, the days when the bread lady doesn't drive up to the front gate and toot her horn for us to come out and buy a loaf. (She also sells croissants and other products, including sliced bread, butter, eggs, cheese, and newspapers.)

When we have way too much bread in the freezer, we sometimes tell the bread lady on Thursday, for example, that we won't need bread on Friday, so that she doesn't have to drive all the way up here just for us. We're her only customers in the hamlet where we live. Sometimes we'll tell her on Tuesday not to come back until Saturday. If we happen to be eating a lot of Chinese or Mexican food, as we are right now, we don't need French bread. Once in a while, we like to make sandwich buns to have with pulled pork or cornbread to have with other American-style food.

Frozen bread

Finally, sometimes we let the surplus French bread dry out and run it through the food processor to make bread crumbs that we can use on top of our gratin dishes. Or we cut it into cubes, toss them in olive oil or melted butter — sometimes with garlic — and toast them to make croûtons to have with soups and salads.

And sometimes we make bread pudding. That's what I did last week when I noticed a whole pain in a zip-top bag in the downstairs freezer. It was perfect for a good bread pudding with apples and walnuts in it. Here's the recipe.

Apple-Walnut Bread Pudding

5 cups soft bread cubes
½ cup walnut pieces
2 cups peeled and diced apples
¾ cup sugar
1¾ cups milk
½ cup melted butter
1 tsp. cinnamon (or mixed spice)
½ tsp. vanilla extract
3 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350ºF (175ºC). Butter a baking dish.

In a large bowl, combine bread, walnuts, and apples. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, milk, and butter. Cook and stir until butter is melted. Pour over bread mixture in bowl. Stir and let cool slightly.

In a small bowl, whisk together spice, vanilla, and eggs. Stir into bread mixture, and then pour all into prepared dish.

Bake in preheated oven 40 to 50 minutes, or until center is set and apples are tender.

Note: a U.S. cup is eight fluid ounces.

Remember, real French bread contains only wheat flour, yeast, salt, and water. I like to make this bread pudding with what is called cassonade in French — raw sugar — not white refined sugar.