I have a French bread recipe that I love to make but it does take a couple of hours. It is delicious and worth the time, but if I need it faster this one hour french bread is fast and tasty.
There is just something about the smell of fresh bread baking in the oven. I like just about any bread if it’s fresh out of the oven. I love it slathered in butter!
This bread starts like most, you add some yeast to a bowl with warm water, sugar, and salt. Allow this to sit for a few minutes to bubble. Next, you add in some butter with 1 cup of flour. You can mix this with a wooden spoon, but like to let the dough hook with my kitchen aid do the work.
Now you add in 2 more cups and flour and mix. At this point, you just add 1/4 cup flour at a time until the dough is combined and pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Once you achieve that, it’s time to knead the dough. You can do this by hand, but again, I let the kitchen aid do the work.
It’s time now to shape the bread. You can make 1 large loaf or 2 smaller loaves. Cover it and let it rise for 20 minutes. After that, you can brush it with an egg wash. This gives it a crunchy top, but you can skip this part if you want to. My family doesn’t like crunchy crust on their bread, so I skip this. Now, all that’s left is baking the bread.
Add this bread to your next meal that would accompany fresh bread. I promise you will love it!
One Hour French Bread
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups warm water
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1 1/2 Tbsp active dry yeast
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 Tbsp butter, softened
- 4 cups flour, spooned and leveled
- 1 egg white, optional (for brushing)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
- In a large bowl, combine warm water, sugar, yeast, and salt. Allow to sit for a few minutes to bubble.
- Add the softened butter and 1 cup of flour, and stir together with a wooden spoon or dough hook.
- Then stir in the 2 cups of flour. Then add the last cup 1/4 cup at a time to see how much you need. The dough should be pulling away from the sides of the bowl but still sticky. Knead for 6-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic.
- Prepare a baking sheet or baguette pan with nonstick spray.
- Shape the dough into one large loaf that is about 12-14 inches, or 2 smaller loaves.Use a sharp serrated knife to make 3-4 half-inch slits on top.
- Cover with a tea towel and let rise for 20 minutes.When the loaf or loaves have roughly doubled in size, remove the towel.
- In a small bowl, whisk up 1 egg white if desired. This gives you a nice crisp crust. Make it nice and frothy. Use a pastry brush to coat the tops and sides of the bread. You can use all or most of the egg white.
- Bake for about 20 minutes for 450 degrees until golden and the bottom of the loaf is browned. The longer you leave it in, the crispier your crust will be. Makes 1 -2 loaves.
Recipe adapted from The Food Charlatan.
2 comments
I was just about to try this recipe but there is an asterisk near the yeast and I cannot find what you mean by it. I was going to switch out the active fry yeast for rapid rise yeast since my kitchen is on the cold side. But not sure if I should.
Sorry, the asterisk was a typo. I would think rapid rise would be fine.