French Bread
The other day I found Pillsbury’s “Easy Does-It Yeast Breads” French Bread recipe among some old recipes that I’ve had for years. This one was most likely my mom’s. The date at the bottom of the page said 1975 so I wondered if I were to use the same recipe today if it would turn out well.
The recipe used a basic bread recipe and then for all the other variations of bread, they would refer back to the basic bread recipe and then tell you what to add or leave out. Anyway, it was a bit of a back and forth to get the recipe, so I rewrote the ingredients on a piece of paper and then pretty much just followed the way I normally make bread.
Flour
I did find that the amount of flour it called for wasn’t nearly enough. I ended up using quite a bit more (almost 3 cups more) to get it to the kneadable stage.
Yeast and Salt
I wasn’t sure about using 2 packages of yeast. It’s possible that yeast came in smaller packages in 1975 but I doubt it. I couldn’t find anything about it on Google either. Needless to say, the dough doubled in size very quickly. The tablespoon of salt was also something that I questioned but I still wanted to try it the way the recipe quoted.
Shaping the Dough
Shaping French Bread takes a bit of practice but it’s not hard at all. Here’s a quick YouTube video from FCIIBP on how to shape your dough for French Bread.
Final Verdict
This bread turned out so good! It holds together nicely and has incredible flavor. The best way to eat it is to warm it up with a little butter.
French Bread is so delicious!
Warm it up with a little butter and there’s not much better than that.
French Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups warm water (105° to 115° F)
- 2 pkgs Active Dry Yeast
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1/4 cup pure vegetable oil
- 4 - 5 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour- plus a little more for kneading
- 1 Tbsp salt
- 1 egg - for brushing on the dough before baking
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, add the yeast, warm water, sugar, and oil and stir until well blended. Let sit for about 10 minutes to activate the yeast.
- Mix in the salt and the flour (4 cups) to the water/yeast mixture a little bit at a time using a stand mixer (with a dough hook) or mix by hand using a wooden spoon. Knead/work the dough for about 3 minutes. Add more flour if needed. You need the dough to be sticky but not so sticky that you can't knead it.
- Cover and let the dough rest for about 10 to 15 minutes.
- Remove dough and place on a lightly floured surface and knead for an additional 3 minutes, adding a little more flour if needed. Try not to add too much flour though. I use the fold over method: Folding the dough over itself, pressing down, folding over again, press down, etc.
- Place dough in clean bowl and cover with a towel or lid and let sit in a warm place for 1.5 hours or until it has doubled in size.
- Remove dough from bowl and knead once more and shape the dough into 2 French loaves. (See video link in notes above this recipe on how to shape the dough). Pinch the ends to close.
- Place on cookie sheet and cut slits across the dough with a razor or sharp knife. This will prevent the top from cracking.
- Preheat oven to 375° F.
- Cover dough and let sit for another 10 minutes and until the oven has reached its correct temperature and the loaves have plumped up again.
- Brush dough with a beaten egg just before baking.
- Bake for approximately 20-30 minutes. The bread is done when the tops are golden brown and the bread sounds hollow when tapped.
- Place on wire rack after loaves are done.
- Wait 30 minutes to slice into the bread. Cutting into bread before it's had time to cool can result in dryer bread.
Notes
- Store in cool dry place, in plastic or breadbox for up to 3 days
- You can lower the amount of salt. The bread tastes really good but I think if you lowered it to 3/4 tsp, that would be fine. I plan on doing that next time..