French Bread

 For the second time in a week Dear One has sent me a recipe.  This time it was for French Bread.  I asked him if it was a hint.  He said, "It just looked good."  So what could I do?  I made it.

French Bread

2 cups warm water
2.5 teaspoons sugar
1Tablespoon yeast
5-6 cups flour
2.5 teaspoons table salt

That is it.  That is all he sent me. I guess he thought I had made enough bread that I could take it from there.  I remembered that 40 years ago in one of the Homemaking Booklets we got in Relief Society there was a recipe that I think was called Fabulous French Bread. I had made it many times.  This came in handy when I needed to pre-heat the oven.

This is what I did:

In a large ceramic bowl I placed the warm water, sugar, and yeast and stirred with a wooden spoon.  After five minutes I added 5 cups of flour and the salt on top then stirred in until all the flour was taken up.  It was pretty sticky so I added another handful of flour and stirred again then used my hand to be sure we had all the flour incorporated.

Covering it with plastic wrap I let it rise for one hour.  It was pretty well doubled in bulk by that time. I floured the counter rather heavily and pulled the dough out of the bowl and onto the flour, turning and folding until the top was nice and smooth. Now was the time to shape it into a fat long French loaf which I put on a Silpat covered half-sheet pan. I covered it with a cloth and let it sit while the oven was heating.

 At that point I started the oven heating to 400 degrees F. and went to read a book until the oven was hot.  The bread cooked for 20 minutes, another memory from Fabulous French Bread.  It must have been right because we got a beautiful loaf.  Which did not sit long enough to cool I can tell you!  Dear One was there in a flash, even before the bread was off the tin!

Seeing this picture reminded me that just before putting the bread into the oven to cook I got a very sharp knife out and gave three deep slashes diagonally across the top.  

Very successful loaf.  Doesn't hurt that I had not made any meals today...