Eggless French Bread

Ingredients:

½ C warm water (faucet running on hot is warm enough, or microwave 5 seconds)
2 ½ tsp active dry yeast

½ tsp sugar or honey

Mix warm water, yeast, and sugar in a measuring cup,  let stand about five minutes until the yeast begins to froth.  This is to make sure your yeast isn't dead.

Pour into a bread machine, or bowl of stand mixer.

Add to the bowl:

1 C water

1 ½ tsp salt

3 1/2 C flour

Turn bread machine to “dough” and let it knead and rise.  It should beep when it is at this point.
(Or knead it in the mixer, then transfer to an oiled bowl, cover to rise.)

If you are making more than one loaf, you can take the dough out at this point, knead into a nice ball and put into an oiled bowl, cover to rise.

Scoop dough out onto a floured surface and, minimally kneading it, tuck dough underneath so you have a smooth top, then form it into your loaf.  Here are some options:

Loaf pan – lightly spray with oil, make a slice length-wise in dough from end to end to allow room for it to expand.  Let rise in oven with light on for 30 minutes.  Turn oven to 450° and bake for about 25 minutes, until golden brown.

French Bread or Mini French Breads– roll into a long loaf and place on a cookie sheet lightly sprayed with oil, snip w/kitchen scissors or slice with a knife diagonally across the top of the bread three or four times to give it room to expand.  Let rise in oven for 30 minutes.  Turn oven to 450° and bake for about 25 minutes, until golden brown.

Pizza Dough – use immediately or refrigerate temporarily.  Form into pizza crust, top with toppings, bake at 450° for about 15-20 minutes.

Cinnamon Rolls – Roll dough into a rectangle, slather with melted butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and raisins if you like.  Loosely roll length-wise and slice 2” wide rolls.  Place loosely in 9”x11” pan, cover with kitchen towel and let rise in oven with light on for 30 minutes.  Bake at 450° for about 20-25 minutes.  Frost with cream cheese frosting or basic powdered sugar icing.

Dinner Rolls – form pieces of dough into balls and place next to each other in a baking dish, or make three smaller balls and put into a muffin pan.  Let rise in oven with light on for 30 minutes.  Turn oven to 450° and bake for about 25 minutes, until golden brown.

We like to butter the top right after it comes out to soften the crust.

We make this almost daily and use it for everything.  One of our faves is to slice the French horizontally and make garlic bread.  Yummy!

Since this is a basic bread recipe, we plan on playing with it and adding other ingredients such as minced garlic, cinnamon raisin, or a chocolate swirl.

Fyi…

* always test your yeast to make sure it blooms.  It can’t be fun making your dough only to have it not rise.

* when baking, the less you mess with it the lighter it will be.  Overly kneaded dough bakes up heavy and dense.

* the amount of flour you need might depend on the humidity.  If the dough is too sticky, add more flour a little at a time.