The Recipe Thread [tm--CajunCook]

Football-Friendly French Bread

Do we have any bread fanatics out there? I could eat it every day and never get tired of it. Imagine my delight when my husband got all into baking fresh bread! This recipe's our favorite and results in something a lot like a fresh loaf of Leidenheimer's french bread. Anyone who's living outside of NOLA and misses the phenomenal po-boy-ready french bread we have here, this is something you should try.

(You'll see why it's "football friendly" at the end of the recipe.)

2 cups of warm water (around 110 degrees F)
2 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of granulated dry yeast
2 tablespoons of vegetable shortening
6 1/2 cups of bread flour
1 tablespoon of salt

Mix the water, one tablespoon of sugar, and yeast in a largish mixing bowl and let it sit for about fifteen minutes (until it starts to get bubbly).

Add the other tablespoon of sugar, the shortening, and about five cups of flour. Mix until it starts to look less like a mess and more like a dough. Add the salt and as much of the remaining flour as the dough will take (you'll know you have enough flour when the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl). Knead for about another ten minutes; it'll take a little longer if you're using your hands and not a stand mixer with a dough hook. What you're looking for is a smooth, elastic dough with no lumps.

Return the dough to the mixing bowl and cover with a barely-damp towel or with plastic wrap and allow to rise somewhere warm and draft-free until it doubles in size (should be about an hour and a half). A great place for dough to rise is in an oven with the light on--the light provides just enough heat to make yeast happy.

Punch the dough down and divide into three balls. Cover these and let them rest for about another fifteen minutes.

Shape the balls into loaves and put them on baking sheets; cover them up with a damp cloth and let them sit for another hour and a half.

Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees. If you live somewhere arid and want to get fancy, you can spritz it with a little water about ten minutes into the baking; that'll give you the right crust that flakes apart when you bite into the finished bread. You can test for doneness by tapping the bottom of a loaf with your finger; if it sounds hollow, it's ready.

All the rises and such are a little time-consuming, but you can just go about your business while your yeast is doing its thing, so it isn't like you'll spend the whole hours-long span staring at dough. In fact, during a game is a great time to make the stuff: assemble ingredients during the boring parts of the pre-game show, let it rise for the first half, shape the loaves at halftime (if you're quick about it), let it get its second rise during the second half, bake! :)