Ann's Bulgur French Bread
Submitted by dachshundlady on May 27, 2009 at 11:29 am

A woman in our town made this bread to sell to the food co-op and local restaurants. I often ran into her at the gym and the co-op so one day I asked her for the recipe. She scribbled it on a piece of paper and was a bit vague about the proofing stage but it is a really good bread. You can tinker with it like I did.

Presoak
1/4 cup bulgur
6 Tablespoon hot water
2 cups water (original recipe had 2 1/3 cups but no eggs)
2 eggs (none in original recipe)
2 Tablespoon oil
2 teas salt
1 Tablespoon yeast (2 teas instant)
5-6 cups flour

Glaze
1/2 egg
1/4 teas salt

The night before or a few hours earlier soak bulgur in hot water.

Mix together eggs(if using), water, salt, soaked bulgur and oil. Add 4 cups flour and yeast. Mix well, adding flour as necessary until bread leaves sides of bowl.

Tip onto counter and knead 5-8 minutes, adding more flour as necessary until it feels like a baby's bottom (my description). Now here it gets vague. She says to do 2 or 3 long, slow rises (The last time I made it, I rose it slowly in a bowl and then formed the 2 loaves for the last rise.)

Form into whatever shaped loaves you want and let them rise a final time. Glaze with the egg/salt mixture.

Bake 425 for 10 minutes
375 for 30 minutes

I often baked them in one of those perforated metal, double Italian bread pans or in a couple soaked terra cotta flower pot saucers that I sprinkled with cornmeal.