French Bread (easy)
1 tablespoon shortening
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups water, divided
2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
5-6 cups flour, divided
olive oil, as needed
1. In mixing bowl, cover shortening, vegan sugar and salt with 3/4 cup boiling water. Once shortening is melted, add another 3/4 cup cold/room temperature water.
2. Meanwhile, mix yeast with 1/2 cup water (113 degrees F). Allow to sit for approximately 3 minutes, stir to dissolve, then add to bowl.
3. Add 5 cups flour, and mix until a nice stiff dough is produced (about 4 minutes), adding flour as required. I use a dough hook, and find it makes the baker's life much easier.
3. Put dough in greased bowl and allow to double in bulk. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Punch down and divide into 2 portions. Form into loaves and place on cookie sheet. Allow to rise until doubled again.
4. After rising, make either 4 crosswise slashes per loaf or 1 horizontal slash the length of the loaf. For a really nice effect, put 1 teaspoon olive oil in the horizontal slash before baking. Bake for 25-35 minutes until golden.
This recipe is excellent for days when you might get home a little early from work, and you can start the vegan bread before dinner. My wife and I have this at least once per week with dinner; there is nothing like piping hot fresh bread with soup, chilli, or chowder!
SO HOW'D IT GO?
Thanks for this recipe! I made this bread for Thanksgiving yesterday and my whole family and I loved it. I will definitely keep this recipe for the future when I want yummy homemade french bread.
Hi -- what type of flour did y'all use? Can I mix the flours? Use Whole Wheat or Spelt, or ?? Does it need to be all white flour?
All of my baking sheets are toaster-oven-sized, so I made two medium loafs out of this.
ha ha, I said, "loafs."
Wow! Great recipe! Easy to follow. I used close to 6 cups of flour, since 5 made the dough really tacky. All of my baking sheets are toaster-oven-sized, so I made two medium loafs out of this. One was baked in the toaster oven while the other was baked in the oven-oven. Interestingly, the toaster oven one came out looking very nice, and the oven-oven loaf looks.... strange.
Good task to use while doing the laundry. I did two loads in the time it took to make this bread from start to finish.
Good, easy recipe! One of my loaves will turn into dressing for Thanksgiving, so I didn't want to spend all day making bread just to make bread crumbs. The other loaf will make wonderful sandwiches: nice and soft, dense but not hard. I used half bread flour and half whole wheat, and added some flax meal and wheat germ for extra fiber and texture. I had errands to run, so I let the loaves rise a long time for the second rise, and they turned out just fine (huge, but fine). I will definitely make this bread again when I want something quick.
Great great recipe, i made it yesterday and im going to make it now again, my inlaws and husband finished it already!!!
I think thats all i have to say, I know im gonna make this recipe A LOT!!!!
:)
So delicious! I was surprised how well this turned out. Did everything by hand because I don't have a mixing machine, but it wasn't that much more work. Will make this again!
Mine turned out bad. I know I did something wrong but I am not sure. I followed as instructed. I let the dough sit twice for 15 mnutes. The bread turned out hard on the outside and doughy on the inside. WHAT DID I DO WRONG! Oh and it didnt seem to rise one bit!
This was the yummiest bread ever! Too bad my family ate most of it. =[
This bread is amazing! It smelled almost too yeasty as it was rising and baking, but now it tastes amazing! I also used EB instead of shortening, but otherwise followed the directions exactly. I made two long loaves and baked them at 400 degrees F for 25 minutes, starting in a cold oven and excluding the preheat. Yum.
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