The Innocent Flower: Easy French Bread

Due to a lot of interest on Facebook when I posted a picture of some bread I made, here's the recipe for my easy French bread. This makes one loaf. And since I love food, I took pictures along the way. Enjoy!

Easy French Bread

1 cup warm water
1 tbsp yeast
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
2-4 cups flour

Measure one cup warm water (about 110 degrees) into a medium-size bowl. Add the yeast and sugar and let grow for a few minutes (about 5 - 8 minutes). Should look something like this - at least this is what mine looks like when I use active dry yeast.

Next, add the salt and oil and then start adding the flour gradually. Stir with a spoon. It should look like this.

Keep adding flour until you start to get a thicker dough and it pulls away from the edges of the bowl as you stir. Once this happens, dump the dough onto a floured, flat surface and start kneading!

Keep adding flour until you get a nice, smooth, somewhat sticky and elastic dough.

Grease a bowl with some oil and pull the dough into a lovely little ball. Drop it in the bowl and cover with a towel.

Let the dough rise until doubled. This can take 30 minutes or more depending on how warm of a place you are. In the winter, I put my oven on warm and keep the oven door open to warm the kitchen enough. In the summer, I just put the bowl in a sunny spot.

When the dough is doubled, punch it down and let it rise again. I've found it doesn't take as long to rise the second time around. Some say the second rise is pointless, but I like to do it anyway. I think I get a better texture out of my bread when I do. Start heating your oven to 375 degrees. When the second rise is finished, punch the dough down again and shape into a loaf on a pan. I like to use a cooking stone.

I like to cut slashes in the bread, although I'm not sure you have to. This time I followed a friend's suggestion and brushed the loaf with some water before putting it into the oven. This is supposed to make the crust more chewy. And I guess the more you brush on during baking, the chewier crust you'll get!

Put the loaf in for about 30 minutes at 375 degrees. Bake until golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it. Take it out and cool on a cooling rack.