Homemade French Bread

I’ve been longing for a bread machine for some time now and my husband just bought me one for our anniversary.  Yay!  I started playing with it this weekend.  My first loaf, which I baked inside the bread machine was really dense, and I didn’t much care for it.

I went out and bought a bread machine cook book, and decided to start using it.  I found this great recipe for French Bread, and I used just the dough cycle in my bread machine– so the machine did all the mixing, kneading, rising… and then I pulled it out, shaped it, brushed it with a little egg wash and stuck it in the oven.

MUCH better. 🙂

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups warm water
3/4 tsp salt
4 cups flour
1 package yeast

Directions:

Place the water, flour, and salt into the bread machine. Make a well, and add the yeast, make sure it doesn’t touch the water. Hit the dough cycle on your bread machine.

When the dough cycle is complete, pull out the dough and on a floured surface, shape it into a loaf. Using a knife, make diagonal slashes on the top of the loaf. Let the loaf rize in a warm place until an indentation remains after lightly touching the side of the loaf.

Take on egg and a teaspoon of water and whisk them together and brush the top of the loaf. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack.