Quick 1-Hour French Bread

“Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.”
~ James Beard

When my family was in town last weekend, we cooked and baked our faces off. For dinner Friday night we made delicious chicken, sweet potato fries, and sauteed kale, plus some double-chocolate zucchini bread and awesome rosemary, lemon, & cheddar bread for munching on later. It was fairly prolific, if I do say so myself.

The problem with that is that—as previously mentioned—I have a very small kitchen. We started to run into trouble with number of burners in use, how many items could be in the oven and at what temperature. It got to be 2-3 hours from dinner time and I realized none of my bread possibilities would be ready for dinner.

And that wasn’t going to work, because my mom loves bread.  Like…LOVES it.  Has to have it with every meal.

So I dove back into my Pinterest board and came up with this gem—1-hour French bread. I was skeptical, because good things take time, particularly when they involve yeast.

But I decided to give it a try and it was great. Probably as good as the artisan bread I made a few weeks ago that had to rise several hours before baking.

Save for later:  A Tool to Decide What Bread to Make Based On How Long You Have…

The recipe seriously took about an hour and a half start-to-finish, and that’s partly because I was making several other things at the same time. It was warm, yeasty, and delicious.

Note, I halved the recipe because we only needed one loaf for dinner, so that’s why the dough looks small.

Put the warm water in a bowl (not too hot), sprinkle the yeast in and the sugar as well. Let sit for five minutes. The top should start to kind of bubble.  Then add the rest of the ingredients and stir together.

Turn out onto the counter and knead for a minute or two.

Run your microwave for two minutes, then put a warm, wet towel over the bowl and put the bowl in the now-warm microwave.  Let it rise for 15 minutes.  This is what mine looked like after 15 minutes…I do believe that it will be under-proved, but it still tastes great and you can get it done on a short timeframe.

Shape into a log and tuck the ends under.  Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, then slice several diagonal cuts into the dough.  You can do this with a serrated knife, just be gentle.  I also used this fancy little bread dough slicer (called a lame, pronounced luh-may) which is much easier. 

Preheat the oven to 375 F and let the dough sit while the oven finishes heating up.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until golden brown.  Your bread should be at least 200 F inside, but mine is still doughy there so I’d do it a little longer.  You can also try putting a small pan of water in the oven (or ice cubes in the bottom of the oven) to create more steam and make an even crustier outside and chewy inside.

Let cool for at least 10 minutes before serving (this will preserve some of the crustiness of the bread).  The crew devoured it, and raved about the flavor and texture.  And it only took an hour!

Other easy bread recipes for dinner:

• Easy Homemade Naan
• Simple Drop Biscuits 
• Crusty French Baguettes in 30 Minutes
• 1-Hour Skillet Focaccia Bread
• Samin Nosrat’s Ligurian Focaccia

Easy 1-Hour French Bread

This is for two loaves, I halved the recipe.

• 2 1/2 cups of lukewarm water
• 2 tablespoons of yeast
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 3 tablespoons of oil
• 5 1/2 to 6 cups of flour

Original recipe here

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