Danish-French Bread (Franskbrod)

Scandigirl's Note:

This is my own creation of a Danish French bread called Franskbrod. I missed it so much here in Canada, that I got down to business and experimented enough to have it down right... Enjoy with homemade peach jam, or some Danish Havarti. Velbekomme!

• Total Time: 3 hrs 40 mins
• Prep Time: 3 hrs
• Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 2

• 7 -7 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 2 packages active dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon shortening
• yellow cornmeal
• 1 egg white
• 2 tablespoons poppy seeds (optional)

Directions:

1. In large mixer bowl combine 3 cups of the flour and the yeast.
2. Heat 2 1/2 cups water, sugar, salt and shortening just till warm 115-120 degrees F.
3. Stirring constantly to melt shortening.
4. Add to dry mixture.
5. Beat at low speed with mixer for 1/2 minute, scraping bowl.
6. Beat 3 minutes at high speed.
7. By hand, stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough.
8. Knead on floured surface till smooth (10 to 12 minutes.) Shape into a ball.
9. Place in greased bowl and turn once.
10. Cover, let rise till double 1-1 1/2 hours.
11. Punch down, divide in half.
12. Cover let rest 10 minutes.
13. Roll each half to 15 x 12" rectangle.
14. Roll up tightly from long side, seal well.
15. Taper ends.
16. Place each diagonally seam side down, on greased baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal.
17. Gash tops diagonally every 2 1/2 inches 1/8 inch deep.
18. Beat egg white just till foamy add 1 tbsp. water
19. Brush tops and sides of loaves, and sprinkle with poppyseeds.
20. Cover, let rise till double (about 1 hr.) Bake at 375 degrees F.
21. till light brown for 20 minutes, brush again with egg white mixture.
22. Bake another 20 minutes longer.
23. Remove from sheets and cool.

Reviews

[Donna Matthews]

Wonderful! Great taste and beautiful presentation!

[najwa]

An excellent bread recipe! after rolling the dough out I sprinkled it with the poppy seeds, and cut it up cinnamon roll style, for some very pretty rolls! they only took 20 minutes in the oven .. thanks

[mianbao]

I'm very pleased with the way this recipe came out. I did not make 2 loaves because my oven is small. Rather, I made one fairly large round loaf (800 g), 8 finger rolls of about 55 g each, and one longer loaf (445 g). The dough rose beautifully in the oven to make lovely breads. They are soft and fine-grained inside, and taste wonderful. Thank you for sharing this recipe with us.