French Bread | Yeasted Bread Recipes

Homemade French Bread

Make your own French bread at home and eliminate all unhealthy ingredients you find in most store bought breads

Ingredients

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups water

Directions
         Combine flour, salt and yeast. Make a well in the center of the ingredients, pour in water. Stir thoroughly by hand or stand mixer, until dough is soft. Cover dough with a clean cloth, let rise in a warm
place until doubled in size. Punch down the dough. Divide in half on a floured board and pat into two equal rectangles. Form each into a baguette by rolling the dough away from you. Continue rolling, pressing outward with your hands and tapering the dough toward the ends until you have a long thin loaf. Place the loaves on a  greased baking sheet. Cover the loaves with floured clean cloth. Let rise in a warm place until somewhat doubled.

   Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. In the bottom of the pan, preheat a baking pan. Fill it with 1 cup hot steaming water. Bake the bread on the center rack for 15 minutes, then reduce to 350 degrees F and bake about 30 more minutes or until the crust is golden brown. when the bread is almost done , brush the loaves with 1 egg white beaten with 1 tbs cold water.