There’s nothing like a delicious loaf of crusty homemade French bread at your dinner table. Making your own bread is inexpensive, tasty, and healthy. Don’t worry, baking bread from scratch isn’t as difficult as you may imagine. It’s about experimenting, baking, and tasting. French bread is a great recipe to start with.
I’ve been making French bread for almost a year now. It’s easy, quick, tasty and everyone in my family loves it. This recipe is tested thoroughly by me to make sure it’s suitable for your kitchen. Making your own bread can save you a lot of cash, but it demands time and some effort. Here’s the French bread recipe to give a whirl the next time you feel like making homemade bread.
- Cuisine: American;
- Category: Baking;
- Serves: 2-4;
- Prep Time: 10 min;
- Cook time: 35 min;
- Nutrition Per Serving: 94;
Ingredients:
- 6 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 ½ cups warm water
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Directions:
Combine water and sugar in a large bowl. Stir in yeast until completely dissolved. Let stand until foamy, about 7-10 minutes. Add in olive oil, salt, and flour. Stir with a large wooden spoon until it becomes too hard to stir. You can use a food processor to make dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 2 minutes.
Put your dough into a large bowl sprayed with cooking spray, cover with a towel, and let stand in a warm place for about an hour or until it doubles in size. If needed, pulse 2-3 times to deflate the dough.
Turn out your dough onto a floured surface. Divide in half and shape into smooth loaves. Generously oil bread pans with olive oil.
Generously drizzle your bread pans with olive oil. Place your loaves in bread pans, and let rise again for about 30 minutes, or until doubled.
Preheat the oven to 375 and bake your dough loaves for about 20-30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Remove the loaves from the oven and brush the top with butter.
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Nothing beats the smell and taste of homemade French bread – and it’s so easy to make your own loaves. All it takes is a little more than 2 hours, though you can make some other meals while your dough is rising, and quick and simple mixing of water and dry ingredients.
The shape of your French bread can be different, but the taste will always be the same. If you have a bread machine, it can make the process easier. When making French bread in the baking machine, add ingredients in this order, especially if you use the timer – warm water, olive oil, salt, sugar, flour, and yeast. It will keep the yeast away from the water and oil until it’s time to mix them together.