French bread and the Oster Bread Machine

French bread and the Oster Bread Machine

Why call it “French bread”?  There are two reasons why it is called French bread. The first reason has to do with the ingredients; French bread usually always incorporates water, olive oil, flour, salt, sugar and yeast with white all-purpose flour or bread flour.  The second reason goes to the shape of the loaf.  French bread dough is shaped into an elongated roll; and allowed freedom to rise on an oiled sheet pan.

Shebolith owns the Oster Bread Machine, Model #5838.  It has provided faithful service for several years.  When I think back to the Alaskan logging camp days and remember the loaves of bread, my friend, Penny and I hand mixed and kneaded every Monday, week in and week out, I feel blessed to own this bread machine.  No longer do I toil through the mixing and kneading and rising, the machine does it all for me in about 1 ½ hours after setting to DOUGH/PASTA.

A truly classic French bread recipe will call for olive oil instead of butter.  Butter is my favorite for all bread, however, in a pinch I have been known to use pure lard just like grandma used pure lard to make her bread and wonderfully flakey piecrust.  At any rate, we are talking about two tablespoons of olive oil, butter or lard.  You may choose your own favorite for this recipe.

Lesson learned:  It is of paramount importance when using the bread machine to load the ingredients in the proper order.  The proper order for this recipe is given below.  Let the flour mound in the middle, sprinkle the salt and sugar over.  With two fingers, create an indentation in the top of the mound, measure your yeast into this hole and gently push the flour back up and over the yeast.  The yeast should not touch the water until it is thoroughly mixed by the machine with all the dry ingredients.

Shebolith’s Never-Fail French Bread Recipe:

Place ingredients in pan in the order given:                   makes a large 1 ½-pound loaf

1 Cup plus 2 T.	Warm Water
2 tsps.	Salted Butter, softened
3 ¼ Cups	Shawnee’s Best All Purpose flour or your favorite bread flour
2 T.	Sugar, white, granulated
1 ½ tsps.	Salt, Iodized Table Salt
1 ¾ tsps.	Fleischmann’s Bread Machine Yeast or quick-acting active dry yeast

The method, step by step:

Remove bread pan from the machine; attach the kneading blade.  Place all ingredients in bread pan in the order listed.  Insert bread pan into machine, close the lid and plug it in.  Select bread type by pressing the arrow key until dough/pasta is blinking.  Wait for 130-minute time to show then press start.  Do anything you want for an hour and a half while the machine does all the work for you.

After 1 ½ hours the timer will sound, it is time to remove the dough from the machine.  On your clean counter top, sprinkle a thin layer of flour.  Take the bread pan out of the machine and turn the dough out onto the flour.  Punch down and hand-knead the dough one last time to remove all the air bubbles.  Shape into a French-style loaf, brush with butter and place on a buttered sheet pan to rise for the last time.  Rising time depends on temperature of kitchen; time can be 30 minutes to an hour.

Meanwhile, tidy up the counter and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Preheating the oven is important when baking breads.  The initial burst of a hot oven causes a phenomenon known as oven spring; oven spring insures a nice tall loaf of bread.  Bake bread for about 25 minutes.