French Bread

Submitted by Dani Jean

"I found this when I was in middle school in an old South Dakota cookbook. I like to knead in different ingredients according to what I'm cooking it to eat with (like different shreaded cheeses or spices). You can make these into small loaves and pull out the middle for a tasty bread bowl. Here's the original recipe and you can all use your imaginations!"

 

• Ready In: 3hrs 30mins
• Ingredients: 7
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• French bread
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 package yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons melted shortening
• 3 3⁄4 cups flour

directions

1. Combine all ingredients well, knead dough until is elastic.
2. Let rise, punch down, let rise again.
3. Punch down and form in a long loaf.
4. Roll gently back and forth to length and taper ends.
5. Place on greased or floured cookie sheet.
6. Sprinkle with corn meal (or other herbs or cheeses), make slashes crosswise at 2 inch intervals.
7. Brush with cold water.
8. Let rise.
9. Brush again with water.
10. Sprinkle sesame seeds (or other herbs or cheeses) and bake at 375 F for 30 minutes.

Reviews

[susan.e.johnson]

Very tasty and quite easy. I too let the yeast proof in the warm water sugar mix. I left mine to rise for longer than called for 2 of the 3 times while I shoveled snow. Didn't seem to have any negative effects. Anyone know if one can make ahead and freeze this to bake later?

 

[Kittencalrecipezazz]

This bread turned out very good, although with preparing the dough with my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, I only needed a little less than 3 cups of all purpose flour, I always start off with 1 cup less than called for and add in more flour if required, also I used 2-1/2 tsp dry yeast, and proofed the yeast in the 1 cup of warm water with 1 tsp sugar added. I'll make this again, great recipe! thank you for sharing. ...Kittencal

 

[Gerry]

Wonderful old fashioned flavor! I combined all the ingredients but for some reason found my flour needing more liquid. The addition of more liquid at that point made a lot of kneading ... but by the first rising the dough looked great. I suspect along with the simple ingredients the second rising makes for that great taste! Next time I will set some of the flour aside and add the last of the flour gradually to assure for easier kneading. (possibly later try mixing it in the bread maker, remove the dough and go from there) I made four mini French bread loaves slashed and topped with Sesame seeds, they looked and tasted so good. I served this with Darlene 10's Turkey Soup 61128 ... a great combination!