Crusty on the outside and soft in the inside: that is what good bread is made of. An easy french bread recipe to accompany any and all soups, stews, and salads this fall.
You wanna know what goes best with a bowl of tomato soup? A chunk of amazing fresh bread straight out of the oven! I know, I know making homemade bread isn’t always realistic with everything else that is going on around you. However, aside from the time this bread takes to rise there is not a lot of hands-on time to prep it before going into the oven. If you have 20 minutes on a day you are at home then you got this! And you can let your stand-up mixer do the kneading for 8 minutes on low speed while you put in a load of laundry and pick up the house a bit. Nice, huh.
How many times does it happen that I head to the grocery store and then forget to buy bread from the bakery to go alongside our soup!? That or when I do remember I stroll up to the bakery and decide nah, I don’t feel like spending $6 on a loaf of bread today.
I am so excited about how often I am going to be using this classic french bread recipe this fall and winter because every year I go on a soup making frenzy. And I love it!! Like this spicy crab and poblano pepper pot, or shrimp bisque, or ratatouille soup could all use a crusty piece of bread to accompany it. Mmm, it’s things like this that gear me up for the bitter cold weather. Yep this bread would be perfect with any of these soups.
The real victory for me was seeing the kids eat it up as fast as they could and then still ask for more. That there was enough to indicate I succeeded with this classic french bread!
So you can probably guess where I am going from here with these loaves of french bread…serve them alongside our favorite pasta, salads, meats because a few bites of delicious bread is a lil bit ‘o wonderful! I used to cut out my carbs but to be honest since I have had kids I just can’t go an entire day without carbs and keep up with my kids.
We all need carbohydrates in our lives no matter what shape or form they are in. When eating carbohydrates it’s not a bad idea to pinpoint its purpose → 1. Hunger 2. Healthy 3. Tasty and then fit it into one of the following categories → 1. Eat until Full 2. Watch Portion Size (healthy food still has calories) 3. Eat Just a Little. So this may sound a little weird but identifying why you are eating can help with portion control. I don’t necessarily stop and think through this every time I take a bite but subconsciously I use this method a lot. There is no reason you can’t have some bread with supper. If you are trying to cut back a bit, eat 1 piece of bread that you have been wanting and you will probably be more likely to resist the 4 pieces of bread you may have eaten in 2 hours. Just sayin.
Classic French Bread (with your stand-up mixer)
Ingredients
- 2 pounds all-purpose flour or 7 cups
- 1/2 ounce dry active yeast or 2 pkgs
- 2 1/2 cups water 110-115℉
- 2 teaspoons coarse salt
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- cornmeal for dusting
- ice cubes
Instructions
- In a medium glass bowl, mix water, yeast and sugar together.
- In a large bowl of stand-up mixer, mix flour and salt.
- Add water mixture and mix on low speed with the dough hook attachment for 8 minutes. Dough will feel warm to the touch.
- Add small amount of olive oil to glass bowl and rub top side of dough over oil and then flip over and allow to rise for 1 hour.
- Split dough into 2 halves and shape into baguettes.
- Place on a cornmeal dusted baking sheet.
- Let dough proof (sit) for one more hour.
- With 15 minutes left of proof-time preheat oven to 425℉. Place a cast iron pan on bottom rack of oven. Just before transferring dough to oven, add several ice cubes to cast iron pan to create steam which helps form a good crust.
- Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Notes
Other Delicious Breads
Whole Grain White Bread
