French Bread  
Recipe Number: 1318
Contributor: TillerBee
 Serves:
Calories Per Serving:
Preparation Time:
Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients:
1 pkg. yeast
2 c warm water
2 tbsp non-fat dry milk
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp butter		 1 tbsp salt
5 1/2 to 6 c unbleached flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 c water
Cooking Instructions:
Dissolve yeast in warm water. Stir in dry milk, sugar, butter and salt. Add flour, a cup at a time, and stir in well. Use last cup while kneading. Knead on a floured surface for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place in greased bowl and let rise, covered, in a warm place until double.

Knead dough 2 minutes. Let rest 5 minutes. Divide dough into 2 parts. For each part, roll into a rectangle, 10 x 16 inches. Roll up the dough, beginning at the long side. Pinch the ends and the seam well, turn under the ends, and shape with hands into a long, even cylinder. Place in greased french bread pan or on a greased cookie sheet (see below).

Mix teaspoon of salt and 1/2 cup water. Brush loaves with salt water until the dough is quite sticky. Cover loosely and let rise in a warm place until double in volume. Brush carefully with the salt water a few times while the dough is rising to keep the outside quite sticky.

Preheat oven to 400?F. Place a shallow pan filled with water on the lowest oven shelf. This will keep the oven very moist while the bread is baking but be very careful when you open the oven door - billows of hot steam will escape for the first 5 seconds or so. Be sure to keep your head and face away from the oven opening until the hot steam stops.

Brush loaves one last time with the salt water. Using a very sharp knife, make diagonal cuts along the top of each loaf, about 1/4 inch deep. Place loaves in hot oven and bake for 45 minutes or until brown and hollow sounding. Remove from pan or cookie sheet for the last 5 minutes of baking so the bottom browns.

Remove from oven and place on wire rack. Let cool, uncovered, about 5 - 10 minutes so the bread stiffens somewhat. Slice with a serrated knife and serve with butter.
Additional Comments:
About the pans: I use a french bread pan. This is a long pan, divided in the middle. Each side is a half circle. The bread comes out rounded on the bottom and the top.

If you use a greased cookie sheet, be sure to add as much of the flour as you can when you are doing the final kneading. Otherwise, the loaves will spread on the cookie sheet and be flat, not rounded. A very firm, dryer dough made with as much flour as the recipe calls for, or maybe as much as 1/4 cup more of flour, will hold its shape during rising and baking.>
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