French Bread

By Addie

I recently made French bread for the first time using our bread machine and it turned out great! You only need flour, water, yeast, salt, egg, and cornmeal. (and I bet you could even get by without the cornmeal) (Thrifty Jenny)

Ingredients

• 1 cup of water
• 3 cups of bread flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
• Cornmeal
• Egg white + 1 tablespoon of water beaten

Preparation

Step 1

Put the first 4 ingredients in your bread machine (in the order your machine suggests) on the dough cycle.

When the cycle is finished. remove dough, punch down, cover and let rest for 10 minutes.

Then divide dough in half and on a lightly floured surface roll into a rectangle, then twist into a spiral, and seal edges.

Place seam sides down on a greased baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal and brush with 1/2 egg white mixture.

Cover and let rise for 35 to 45 min or until doubles. Score top with 3 or 4 diagonal cuts and place in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Then brush with the remaining egg mixture and bake an addition 12-15 minutes until the bread sound hollow. Cool on wire rack.