What a great recipe! Restored my husband's faith in my bread baking. I have been making it two times a week for the last couple months. I make the dough in my bread machine and bake it in a French Bread Pan (Chicago Metallic from amazon.com). I use 2 c water, 2 1/2 tsp salt, 5 c bread flour, 2 Tbsp active dry yeast (super cheap 2 lb bag from Costco). When the machine is done kneading, I let it rise in a big greased bowl, otherwise it would overflow. I let it rise for close to an hour. Step 3 just like in the original recipe, but I often skip the 10 minutes rest. I grease the pan, don't use cornmeal. I found that it is best to make the cuts BEFORE the second rise, otherwise it will deflate the loaf. I cover it with a DRY cloth and let rise for a whole hour. The egg wash I do AFTER the rise, and my cloth stays clean for the next use. For the eggwash I use a big 2" PAINTBRUSH that I got from the hardware store especially for baking this kind of bread. The bristles are natural, and I chose black color, in case a hair falls out, I will see it. Happened only one time. I bake it as in the original recipe: brush it again after 20 minutes, the second part of baking I found to be 25 minutes. Also spray some water into the oven at the half of each baking sections (at around 10 and 30 minutes). I let it cool right in the perforated pan. Jenn, thanks SO MUCH for submitting this! Half of all the bread we eat these days comes from your recipe!
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