Super Easy French Bread

A few weeks ago we decided to try out making bread bowls for soup. The Missionaries were coming over for dinner, and I thought it was the perfect time for experimenting! I found a great recipe for french bread and used that. The bread is so good and easy I make it a few times a month, at least, and since its just Chris and I, it lasts a while. The recipe rely on a bread machine to do most of the work, sweet, huh!! Here goes:

Place the following ingredients in order into your bread machine pan:

1 C warm water
2 1/2 C bread flour
1 TBSP sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp quick rise yeast (also known as bread machine yeast. Regular yeast is fine, it will just rise slower!)

Turn your bread machine on to the dough cycle and press start. My machine takes 1 hour 20 min to go through this cycle.

After it is done, remove the dough from machine and place in an oiled bowl, turning over so all sides are coated. Let rise until doubled, which is at least 1 hour sometimes more. If I start this early, I just let it rise until I get the chance to do the next step. Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched

Once doubled, place dough on a well floured surface. Roll out to a 12x16 rectangle. cut in half, making 2 12x8 rectangles. Roll each piece up, on the long side, like you were making cinnamon rolls. Place seam on the bottom, and pinch ends together. Place on a baking sheet and let rise again for another hour or so, or until they are nice and puffy. The longer they rise the more tender and light the bread will be.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Mix egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water; brush over tops of loaves. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown. For a crispy crust, place a pan of ice water on the bottom rack of your oven as the bread bakes. Or if you have a food-safe spray bottle, every 5 minutes or so open your oven and spray water inside. This creates steam, which creates a nice crisp crust!

***Bread bowls*****
Instead of rolling the dough into loaves, I just made balls. I got 3 out of each recipe, they weighed 7 oz each (I like to weigh everything to make sure its even. Call me a dork. . . )Let them rise the second time, and bake for about the same amount of time, I think. Just keep checking. I let them cool, cut the tops off, dug a lot of the dough out, and pressed the insides so that it made the crust thicker. Filled with thicker soups and enjoy!!