 |
French bread by ET Charles
|
2 cups warm water
2 Tablespoons yeast or 2 individual packages dry yeast
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3 Tablespoons olive oil
5 - 6 cups unsifted white flour
Small amount of butter
Directions: Pour warm water in bowl. Add yeast and sugar.
Do not stir. Let sit until yeast is bubbly – proofed. Sprinkle in salt and add
olive oil. Stir. Add one cup of flour and stir well with a wooden spoon. Add 2
more cups of flour and stir well. Add 2 more cups of flour for a total of 5 cups
of flour. Stir well. If dough is very sticky add additional flour by the
quarter cup and stir. Let rise in a warm, draft free, place until double in
bulk.
Punch down dough. Knead briefly – 8 kneads. Divide dough
into 2 or 4 equal pieces. Using a rolling pin, roll each piece into a rectangle,
approximately 12x14 inches for two long baguettes and 6x8 inches for four short
baguettes. Then roll each rectangle up into a long log. Place dough logs on baking pan
greased with butter. Let rise again in a warm, draft free place until double in
size.
Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes. Let cool.
Loaves may be removed to a cutting board to continue cooling and while cooling
use a butter wrapper to grease the top of the loaves.
Once you have made the bread a few times, it goes fairly
quickly and easily.
Yields: Two long loaves or four shorter loaves or four
pizza crusts which fit a 9.5-inch diameter pie pan
Notes: This is an adaptation of my mother’s recipe for
French bread. She did not add olive oil. She did not knead the dough. She rolled
out two long loaves, slashed the loaves, sprinkled the loaves with water,
placed them on a corn meal covered baking pan and baked at 425 degrees
Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. She then sprinkled the loaves with more water and
baked at a lower temperature for 30 or 35 minutes. She never greased
the tops of the loaves with butter after removing from the oven. The bread was
delicious and consumed in two days.
