French bread recipes

Being a french national, I love french bread and so does my family. Here are 2 recipes that we love at our house

Baguette Viennoise

240 ml milk

1/4 cup +2tbsp butter or margarine

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 -1 tsp salt

3 1/2 cup +2 tbsp flour (I substitute a cup with whole wheat flour sometimes)

2 1/2 tsp of yeast

Put all the ingredients in the bread machine as usual. Put on dough setting. Take dough out when done and cut in two. Roll each piece of dough in a rectangle and roll up or fold in three (I personally prefer rolling). Put on a cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal, and let rise 20 minutes (the rising is actually optional). Bake at 400 for 20 minutes. You can brush some milk on top before baking and make some incisions as well.

French bread

4- 4 1//2 cup of flour (i use 3 1/2 cup flour and 1 cup whole whole flour)

1 tsp sugar

1 1/2 cup water

1 tsp salt

2 1/2 yeast

Put all ingredients in the bread machine, put on dough setting. When done, separate in two and roll into a rectangle. shape into baguette logs and let rest for 30 minutes. Make 3-4 slashes on loafs and lightly brush with cold water. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.

Both these recipes can be made without a bread machine. Just proof the yeast and sugar in 3 tbsp water for 5-15 minutes, until foamy. Mix flour and salt together then add the warm liquid and butter (in the case of the baguette viennoise), and the yeast mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon until you get a stiff dough. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes. Transfer into an oiled bowl and let rise loosely covered about 1 1/2 hour. Then proceed as above with the risen dough.

Enjoy and let me know how these turn out.