Confessing my Love for French Bread

Gluten has been getting a bad rap for a while now. It’s really not fair, as all gluten is not created equally. And some people who think they might have an aversion to gluten are often having issues with the highly processed variety, are perhaps having too much of it, or even have an issue with yeast, not gluten. Now I am not talking about Celiac, I know people with this and it’s a serious issue. And I’m not here to convince anyone about anything in particular. I just want to talk about bread. Excellent bread.

As many of you know, the baguette is as much part of French daily life as cheese, wine and small dogs. But not all baguettes are good. I have looked high and low, done my research, tried hundreds of versions from different boulangeries. And I have concluded I don’t like most of them. That’s correct, you heard me right.

However, don’t despair there is hope! Paula shares her favourite bakeries in the Vaucluse. Continue reading here and imagine (or start planning) a little bread-filled road trip to Crestet for baguette or Carpentras to satisfy your sweet tooth at one of the prettiest pâtisseries around.

French Bread Guide

Baguette – Translates into a stick. Long and straight this bread is iconic, the one you see in classic images of French shoppers. The typical baguette is about half a pound (250 grams). There are no preservatives in the ingredients so the “stick” will become hard quite quickly, which is why they are baked several times a day. There are some variations on the baguette ingredients such as the addition of whole grains. The perfect one needs to be crusty and chewy, never limp.

Boules – Rounded in shape these loaves have a hard crust an soft interior. The ingredients vary.

Ficelle – Looks just like a miniature baguette, it is just the right size to use for tapenade or other spreads for the apéro hour.

Pain de Campagne is a bit more of a rustic loaf, often with whole grains or other ingredients.

Pain aux Céréales is bread made with whole grains.

Pain de Seigle is rye bread

Pain aux Noix is walnut bread. Paula shares her favourite place to pick up a loaf.

Enjoy!

Paula Kane

From a background in advertising and design, Paula Kane has forged a career that combines her love of good food and wine with her expertise in marketing to produce highly successful culinary events across Canada. Paula first travelled to France 20 years ago and has been returning ever since. She received a scholarship from the James Beard Foundation to attend Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, from which she was graduated in 2009. She has completed the International Sommelier Guild Wine Fundamentals and recently, the Hautes Etudes du Goût program in gastronomy from which she was awarded a Masters degree from the University of Reims in Champagne, France. For the past ten years, Paula has spent part of her year in the Vaucluse where she cycles, cooks, drinks wine, explores and shares her discoveries with others on her website A Table en Provence. Recently she launched an online magazine —Olive + Sweetpea— dedicated to all things she is passionate about: food, wine, travel, home and women trailblazers.