The Easiest French Bread

Place the ingredients in your bread machine according to manufacturer’s directions. Start machine on the dough setting. When dough cycle is complete (usually about an hour to an hour and a half), remove dough and place on a floured surface.

Preheat oven to 200F degrees (you’re going to put your loaves in the preheated oven to rise). Cut the dough ball in half and roll each loaf out to about 12 inches long in the shape of French bread. Cut three small slices on top of the bread (this is optional) and place loaves on a greased baking sheet (just spray evenly with Pam). Cover with a clean dish towel and place into the preheated oven (at this point you can turn the oven off and just let the loaves rise until doubled, about an hour, in the warmed oven).

Take loaves out and preheat oven to 450F degrees. Bake loaves for 15-20 minutes until golden brown, turning the pan around once halfway during baking. Remove loaves when finished baking and allow to cool on wire racks.

Cook’s note: I usually get the jar of Fleischmann’s Yeast for the Bread Machine and keep it stored in the fridge. If you are using yeast from a jar, give your jar a good shake and then measure out 2 ¼ teaspoons of yeast for this recipe. Also, you just need to use table salt for this recipe. Kosher salt granules will be a little too large to use here.

(Recipe from Sunbeam’s bread machine book.)