This was my first attempt at an "épi de blé," or "sheaf of wheat" shape. I made it with Anis Bouabsa's baguette dough. 

Épi de Blé

Close-up

David

I got my copy of the BBA about two weeks ago, and it's been really great, I read through it in just two days and have started trying out various recipes and techniques, Here are some pics of the results, I have been very very happy with them all so far, and below are actually shots of my first attempts at each recipe :)

- Here is a Boule and a Tabatiere made with the Pain de Campagne recipe

- Here is an Epi and Fougasse with the same recipe (Same dough too actually)

- Here is the crumb from the Epi, it was crispy and delicious

- and a crumb shot of the Tabatiere, it was soft and very springy, the crust was excellent

- and finally some Pain a l'Ancienne from last week, it was excellent though my oven was being a little wonky at the time, so it's not as good as it could have been, (And will be next week ;) )

This is from yesterday's baking session using the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes recipes -- an epi and 2 small loaves of olive bread using some totally delicious kalamata olives I had to scour the city to find. What's wrong with these grocers? The dough for the olive bread was 11 days old. Great oven spring!

Baking session on 2/13/08. Kalamata olive bread and a pain d'epi.

ABin5 epi. Dough was 12 days old.  Blurry.  What a bummer.

Can anyone tell me how to form an Epi French Bread?

Lenny The Bake