Another 2 for 1

I decided to go with Tyler Florence's "The Ultimate French Onion Soup", but first I needed to make some bread. I decided to go with the Classic Baguette from Paul Gayler's "World Breads".
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There were very few ingredients, basically, just flour, water, sea salt and yeast.





After mixing the yeast, water, salt and half the flour(s) together

After mixing in the remaining flour (after the original mix rested for 4 hours) and kneading for 8 minutes

After sitting for another hour

After shaping the dough into a baguette, it again sat for an hour before cooking in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

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I was not a fan of the bread. The crust was really good, but the inside was very dense and chewy. I attribute the failure to my oven, not the recipe. But, in the future, I would just pay the $2.00 at the commissary instead of spending 6 hours to make two loaves. If I didn't have a ton of flour and yeast to use up, I probably wouldn't have attempted this.

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Next up was the soup from Tyler Florence's cookbook "Tyler's Ultimate"

You will need:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, plus 4 tbsp, softened

4 onions sliced

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 bay leaf

2 fresh thyme sprigs (I used 1/2 tsp dried)

1 cup of red wine (I omitted this and just added extra beef broth)

2 qts beef broth

3 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 baguette sliced

1/2 lb grated Gruyere cheese (I used shredded mozzarella)

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Melt the butter in a large pot, add the onions, garlic, bay leaf, thyme and salt. Cook until the onions are soft and caramelized, about 25 minutes. Add the wine, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the wine has evaporated and the onions are dry. Discard the bay leaf and thyme sprigs. Dust the onions with flour. Cook for about 10 minutes so the raw flour flavor cooks out. Add the beef broth and bring the soup back to a boil and cook for 10 minutes. When done, preheat the broiler and arrange the baguette slices on a baking sheet in a single layer. Brush with butter. Sprinkle the slices with the cheese and broil until bubbly and golden brown.

I did not follow this last step. I put everything into a bowl and then just placed the whole bowl under the broiler.

This is how full the pan was before caramelizing the 4 onions

After carmalization:

And finally, the finished product:

The soup was very good, and even though the bread was less than stellar, it was alright in the soup (you couldn't tell how dense it was).

I have found that I own 3 of Tyler's cookbooks (I could swear I had a fourth, but I cannot find it). It would be my luck that the BX would be selling the three I already own. I plan to just buy whatever book(s) they have when we go on the 1st. I figure I can give K2 the ones I have and keep the signed ones for myself.