French Bread

This is a fantastic freezer recipe that I found a few months back from a book called Once-A-Month Cooking: A Proven System for Spending Less Time in the Kitchen and Enjoying Delicious, Homemade Meals Everyday by Mary Beth Lagerborg and Mimi Wilson It is a great book full of great recipes, definitely one to take out of the library!

The recipe makes 4 smallish loaves of french bread (enough for 4 or 5 people each).

3C Warm Water
1 1/4oz package active dry yeast
3Tbls sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
7 1/2-8C all purpose flour

1. In a large bowl dissolve yeast in 1C warm water.

2. Add sugar and salt, let stand 5 minutes.

3. Stir in 2C water and 3C of the flour-beat with the paddle attachment on your stand mixer. Add remaining flour 1C at a time.

4. Knead with dough hood attachment for 4-6 minutes.

5. Cover with a towel and let rise until tripled in size.
Note: You can make the dough in the morning and let it rise all day.

6. Shape into 4 "loaves" and place on a baking sheet sprayed with Pam.

7. Let rise 45 minutes until doubled in size.

8. Bake at 450 for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 and bake another 30 minutes or until golden.

To Freeze:
Wrap each baked loaf in foil

To Reheat:
Loosen one end of foil, and bake frozen loaf at 375 for 20-30 minutes (mine usually takes 30)

This bread is delish! Very crunchy on the outside, and soft and squishy on the inside.

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