White-Wheat French Bread

Credit for this recipe has to go to Melissa Coombs. She taught a class I attended about food storage, and she is just phenomenal. As part of the class, she gave us a sheet of recipes (front and back) that I have worn almost to pieces. I'm not kidding. I'm going to have to retype it soon or put it in a sheet protector.

You have already reaped the benefit of her culinary prowess if you've ever tried my recipe for Best Homemade Bread or Sunday Morning Pancakes. And if you've tried those, then you know why I have worn this sheet of recipes out.

So, on to the French Bread. The original recipe makes 2 loaves, but I generally just half it and make one unless we have company coming. I suppose I could just make two loaves and freeze one, but I'm not used to having much extra freezer space yet and haven't gotten around to trying it. For simplicity, I have given the recipe for one loaf of French Bread.


White-Wheat French Bread
(Makes one loaf of 1700 calories. That means, if you cut it into 12 slices it's just under 150 calories per slice.)

1 1/4 c. warm water
1 Tbsp yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp oil
1 1/2 cups wheat flour
1 1/2 cups white flour

Mix water, yeast, and sugar together in a bowl.

Stir and let it sit for a few minutes until foamy.

With a mixer, beat in oil, salt, and 1 1/2 cups wheat flour. (I promise I used a mixer for this part, I just didn't take a picture of it.) Mix for about 4 minutes, or as long as you can stand it. This replaces the kneading time so hang in there!

Stir in remaining flour with a spoon.

Turn onto lightly floured surface and knead a couple times until flour is mixed in well and bread dough is smooth and not sticky any more. Add additional flour if needed.

Wash and dry the mixing bowl you were using. Drizzle a little oil in the bottom.

Place the dough (smooth side down) in the bowl. Give it a turn to coat, then turn over so the oiled side it up. Cover and let rise till double in size. Depending on how warm your kitchen is, this should take an hour or two.

If you don't have time to shape into a loaf when the bread dough is ready, just punch it down and let it rise again. When the dough looks something like this, you're ready to shape it into a loaf of french bread.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Roll it out into a long rectangle. The long side of the rectangle will be the length of your loaf of french bread, so make sure it's not too long to fit on your baking sheet. Starting from one of the long sides, roll up the dough into a loaf of bread.

Place the loaf on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Or, if you haven't discovered the joys of parchment paper yet, you can just spray the baking sheet with cooking spray. Be sure to cut several slits along the top of the loaf BEFORE rising.

Let rise until double in size (about 30 minutes).

Bake at 400 degrees for about 20-25 minutes, or until nicely browned. The longer you bake it, the crunchier it will be.

(For more bread-making tips, check out my Bread Tutorial!)