Lou McLeod: Easy Homemade French Bread Recipe for Delicious Crusty French Bread

Thursday, 29 June 2017

Easy Homemade French Bread Recipe for Delicious Crusty French Bread

The following article Easy Homemade French Bread Recipe for Delicious Crusty French Bread is republished from Total Survival

This French bread recipe is one of my “must have” bread recipes. I use it for making bread bowls for soup, such as Wisconsin Cheese Soup, or to accompany soup and salad, or a hearty stew. French bread, not surprisingly, is great for French toast. Because it has a sturdier crust, it holds up well even when soaked with egg batter – so you don't end up with your toast falling apart before you get it to the pan.

If you prefer a crusty French bread recipe, make sure to use the salt water glaze. This gives the French bread a chewy, crispy crust. If you would like a softer crust, you may skip the glaze. (I highly recommend using it.)

Homemade French Bread Recipe

Ingredients

Loaves:

1 1/4 cup warm water
1 TBSP sugar
1 tablespoon bread machine yeast (I prefer SAF-INSTANT yeast)
1 tsp sea salt (Frontier sea salt is a personal favorite)
3 1/2 cups bread flour (I use King Arthur or organic bread flour such as Heartland Mills)

Glaze:

2 TBSP water
1/2 tsp salt

Directions

To make the French bread dough, you can either use the dough cycle on your bread machine, mix in a heavy stand mixer with dough hook or Bosch Kitchen Machine, or mix by hand. Dissolve sugar, yeast and salt in warm water. Add flour cup by cup, mixing after each addition, until a firm dough is formed (or let the dough cycle do its thing). Let rise about 20 minutes, punch down, allow to rise until doubled in size.

Roll out the dough in a rectangle, just slightly shorter than the length of your baking sheet and about half as wide. Roll up jelly roll style. Place on greased pan (or cover pan with reusable parchment paper), seam side down. Allow to rise until double in size. Score dough with a sharp knife three times, about 1/3 of the way through the loaf. Brush with glaze and bake about 20-25 minutes at 400 F. Cool on wire rack.

A single recipe makes one loaf (this is a double batch of the French bread recipe in the photos, thus two loaves).

Roll out the French bread dough jelly roll style.

Place the French bread dough loaves on prepared pans and allow to rise until roughly double in size.

For a crusty French bread, brush the bread with a saltwater glaze just before baking.

Remove the French bread loaves from the oven and cool on a wire rack before serving.

If you'd like to watch the whole process of forming the loaves and prepping for baking in more detail, check out the video below:

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Easy French Bread Recipe

This five ingredient bread recipe goes great with soups and stews, or can be used to make an edible bread bowl.

Ingredients

Loaves

1 1/4 cup warm water
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon bread machine yeast
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 1/2 cups bread flour

Glaze

2 Tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Dissolve sugar, yeast and salt in warm water. Add flour cup by cup, mixing after each addition, until a firm dough is formed (or let the dough cycle do its thing). Let rise about 20 minutes, punch down, allow to rise until doubled in size.
Roll out the dough in a rectangle, just slightly shorter than the length of your baking sheet and about half as wide. Roll up jelly roll style. Place on greased pan (or cover pan with reusable parchment paper), seam side down. Allow to rise until double in size.
Score dough with a sharp knife three times, about 1/3 of the way through the loaf. Brush with glaze and bake about 20-25 minutes at 400 F. Cool on wire rack. A single recipe makes one loaf (this is a double batch in the photos, thus two loaves).