French Bread (4 Star)

My first born loves to cook and bake. He recently learned how to make french bread (which he currently sells to a couple of our neighbors!) and it is really good and not that hard to make--in the bread maker, that is! He uses the dough setting on the bread maker and bakes it in the oven.



French Bread

2/3 cup water
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
3 1/4 cups white bread flour (we actually just use Lehi Roller Mills unbleached all purpose and it still works well)
2 Tablespoons gluten flour
2/3 cup water
3 1/2 teaspoons active dry or 3 teaspoons rapid rise yeast

Place the above ingredients in the order listed into the bread maker pan. Follow the bread maker instructions for the "dough" cycle. When the "dough" cycle is finished, dump the dough out onto a very lightly floured surface and divide in half. (He makes two small loaves with this recipe but you could also make one large loaf.)

At this point place a small metal pan on your oven floor and set your oven to 450 degrees to begin pre-heating.

Shape the dough halves into elongated loaves with your hands, if you want to be fast, and then place them side by side on a buttered jelly roll pan. If you want well formed loaves and don't mind taking a little more time, follow the instructions in this tutorial. It requires a little rolling but still isn't too difficult.

Allow the loaves to rise for about 20 minutes and with a sharp, serrated knife, make five to six diagonal slashes across the top of the loaf. Place the pan into the oven and immediately dump a half cup of water into the hot pan on the bottom of the stove. This creates steam that makes the crust crispy. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes for two small loaves, or 20-25 minutes for one large one.

If you don't have a bread maker or just want much better instructions than I have given, go here. This is the same tutorial I mentioned above--she has very thorough instructions with pictures.