Danger Dog Yumminess....Homemade French Bread

Yes, this is a serious "Danger Dog Yumminess" situation - Homemade French Bread.  And even more serious.....it is EASY to make.  It does take a little time to get to the finale result of this delicious bread but over all it is a VERY easy bread to make.  The grand prize gives you TWO loaves.  Yes, TWO! - sooooo exciting!!!!

And where did I come up with this lovely little recipe you ask?  The answer I say is, "Where I find SO MANY super amazing recipes.....Tasty Kitchen".  Yup, after getting it in my head that I wanted to make French Bread this past weekend I let my fingers do the walking and typed myself on over to TK to quickly find a recipe that began with the word, "EASY" and also contained  the words,  "Homemade French Bread" = Easy Homemade French Bread.  Then as I read the reviews and comments of this recipe by the lovely member of TK named, grammydenise I found that EVERYONE gave rave reviews with excitement and delicious happiness. Yahoo, I had found my recipe and went for it!  Do you want to go for it and make this bread? Good....I thought you'd say so!

Just a little note...because I was making this bread and a wonderful soup (recipe to come soon) I kinda had my hands full and didn't take my usually step-by-step photos.  If you have any questions please do ask....I am here for you. :-)

Easy Homemade French Bread

(recipe from grammydenise on TK)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup WARM water

2 packages (7g packet) dry active yeast

2 cups HOT water

1/3 cup oil (I used canola oil)

3 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp salt

6 cups all-purpose flour - divided

1 egg white (for brushing on bread just before baking)

Directions:

1.  Combine the WARM water and the yeast in a bowl.   Set this bowl aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine 3 cups flour, HOT water, oil, sugar and salt.  Stir with

a wooden spoon.

3. Add in yeast mixture and stir.

4. Add in remaining 3 cups of flour and stir.  At this point you may need to your use hands to combine the flour completely. 

5. Let dough rest for 10 minutes.  Set a timer.  Your timer will be your close friend for the rest of this recipe.

6. Stir dough again and let rest again for another 10 minutes.

7. Repeat this process (stir and rest) 3 more times - for a total of 5 times.  I found that by making a check mark for each time of "stir and rest" it helped me keep track of each cycle.

8.  At the end of the 5th "stir and rest" cycle divide dough in half. 

9. Take each half and place on a well floured surface.  Press out each half into a rectangle.  Roll up individual rectangles starting on the longest side (just like you are rolling dough for cinnamon rolls).  Set each roll of bread dough on a greased cookie sheet.

10.  Let bread rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees F half way through the rising time.

11. With a sharp knife, make 3-4 diagonal slashes across each loaf.  Brush with egg white.

12. Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes. Bread will be a gorgeous golden brown when done.  Remove breads from baking sheet to a cooling rack.  Slice and serve with proud happiness!

 Jam and butter are wonderful accompaniments to this bread fresh out of the oven.....

Or a delicious soup! (I can't wait to share with you the Italian Tomato Tortellini Soup I made to go with this bread!!!!.....patience Darlin', patience.)
Happy Easy Homemade French Bread Baking!