Great French Bread Recipe
Ingredients
20 ozs of Shipton Mills finest type 55 flour.
350ml of water at between 21 & 28 degrees c or 70 - 80 F
I tablespoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon of Rock salt
I tablespoon of melted butter or margarine (shortening)
1/2 an ounce of fresh yeast (bakery section at supermarket will give you some if you ask nicely)
Method
Dissolve yeast in water adding sugar and allow to brew for 5 minutes, add shortening and salt.
Sieve flour into big bowl, stir in water and yeast mix. Rough stir for a minute. Cover with cling film and leave for an hour to double in size.
Tip gloopy mix out onto a lightly floured surface then roll into a long sausage shape. (Mix seems very wet at this point) Cut into three pieces. Using a floured rolling pin, roll each piece into a rough square about a foot long and 1/2 inch thick turning over whilst rolling to stop sticking to work surface. Roll dough into a swiss roll shape.
Allow to prove for another hour then brush beaten egg over the top surfaces. Score top surface of dough in three places across the width then place in oven at 170 degrees for 30 minutes.
Allow to cool on wire tray. Cut and enjoy some of the best bread known to man !!
Added by: Charles
A favourite recipe of mine and tastes superb.
Pamela: 2010-11-10 Add reply
Bread machine review
Quantities: Only used ¾ of quantities recommended. Used dried yeast not fresh yeast. Settings: Basic setting with ¾ sachet of yeast instead of a whole sachet. (Also tried it on a French bake 6hr setting, which was not successful, and on a basic loaf setting which produced a much better loaf , but the top sank a bit. Comments: Produced a loaf not sticks like the recipe suggests. Verdict: Good
baker: 2010-09-08 Add reply
Perfect
Really easy to make, even for the novice breadmaker and absolutely delicious. It was eaten almost as soon as I removed it from the oven.
: 2010-07-14 Add reply