To celebrate what would have been Julia Child's 100th birthday, the Bread Baking Babes and Buddies have joined together this month to bake the late culinary icon's Pain Francais (French Bread) -- one of the many recipes popularized by Julia in her book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 2." This bread, though simple in its make-up, is rather complicated in nature and does require some mastery of French bread baking techniques as well as a higher level of skill in bread shaping; certainly essential if you want yours to look remotely like the breads you'd find in the boulangeries of France (which mine definitely does not :-P). Julia's recipe is quite informative yet rather lengthy in its 20 pages(!) but Susan of Wild Yeast Blog posted a much simplified version of this recipe here. Hanaa was also kind enough to send me a very helpful video of Julia making this bread--which I've posted below--during one of her shows that aired back in the 60s (I'm guessing the date but based on her hairstyle, it must've been during that time LOL).
