French bread is an all-time favorite, no matter how you slice it! And when it’s homemade, it’s that much better. I’ve been making this Homemade French Bread for many years now and it’s proven to be the best white bread ever known to us. It doesn’t take very long to make and it’s simple. You would need a bread maker to assist you in some steps of making this bread in this particular way. If you don’t have one, you can purchase the one I have for 8 years already. It can be found in the Shop category on top menu. This bread is very tasty and has very few ingredients compared to the store bought bread, in which the only disguise of the chemicals pumped in it, is freshness, and then its bird food. This bread is super delicious fresh and stays tasty for days. The crunchy crust and slightly chewy center makes this bread completely irresistible, you simply can’t stop eating it. We almost never buy bread from the store since homemade bread cannot compare with taste, freshness and health wise. My kids eat this bread plain and say that our mom makes the best bread ever. One loaf of bread turns out to be approximately one pound. Try it yourself.
Ingredients you will need:
4 cups – all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. – sugar
1 tsp. – salt
2 tbsp. – instant nonfat dry milk
2 tbsp. – imperial margarine or unsalted softened butter
1 tbsp. – dry yeast
1 ½ cup – water (room temperature)
Egg to brush the loaves
You will need a 2 lbs. loaves size bread machine maker.
1. Add flour, sugar, salt, dry milk, margarine or softened butter, and yeast into a bread machine pan.
2. Add water. Insert the pan into the bread maker and program it on the dough cycle.
3. It will take 1 ½ hours to mix and rise the bread dough.
4. Sift 1 tbsp. onto a large cutting board. Take the dough out of the bread maker pan and onto the flour dusted cutting board.
5. Coat the dough into dusted flour.
6. Split the dough in half.
7. Roll two ball of dough into two loaves. Place them on the greased pan. Brush it with egg. Cut lines. Let the loaves rise it the warm oven for 30 minutes. (I usually pre-heat oven to 100F. for 5 minutes for the rising, then turn it off).
8. Take the risen loaves out of the oven carefully. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bake it for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. Cool completely before serving.
Enjoy!
- 4 cups – all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp. – sugar
- 1 tsp. – salt
- 2 tbsp. – instant nonfat dry milk
- 2 tbsp. – imperial margarine or unsalted butter softened
- 1 tbsp. – dry yeast
- 1 ½ cup – water room temperature
- Egg to brush the loaves
- Add flour, sugar, salt, dry milk, margarine or softened butter, and yeast into a bread machine pan.
- Add water. Insert the pan into the bread maker and program it on the dough cycle.
- It will take 1 ½ hours to mix and rise the bread dough.
- Sift 1 tbsp. onto a large cutting board. Take the dough out of the bread maker pan and onto the flour dusted cutting board.
- Coat the dough into dusted flour.
- Split the dough in half.
- Roll two ball of dough into two loaves. Place them on the greased pan. Brush it with scramble egg. Cut lines. Let the loaves rise it the warm oven for 30 minutes. (I usually pre-heat oven to 100 F. for 5 minutes for the rising, then turn it off)).
- Take the risen loaves out of the oven carefully. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bake it for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. Cool completely before serving.
- Enjoy!
If you make this recipe please share the picture with me on facebook, instagram or pinterest. Tag it with #valyastasteofhome, I love seeing your creation. 🙂
My mouth just watered!! Yummy!! Love this bread recipe! Thanks for posting.
This is a good stuff! Thanks Natasha! 😉
I can almost smell this through the screen. You can’t beat homemade bread.
I know! Right…? Homemade is the best!!! 🙂
yummm, this looks really great! I love homemade bread 😉
Me too. Thanks Michele! 😉
This bread looks great Valya! It’s been a while since I’ve made bread at home, will try your recipe!
Thanks Mira! Nothing beats home made bread! 🙂
Can I use Bonnet blue margarine?
I never used that brand of margarine(I think that all margarine brands have the same ingredients). Let me know how it turns out for you.
This french bread looks amazing! Definitely has the looks of bakery bread. What a fantastic idea to make a home-made version!
It is Gayle! So much less ingredients in home made bread, compare what they put into the bread at the bakery. Thanks for your comment! 🙂
Ugh, reminds me of my delicious childhood. I miss the days of wolfing down baugettes!
It sure does! Thanks GiGi!
This bread looks amazing. Looks a lot like the one we had in Europe.
It sure tastes like it too! Thanks Natalya!:)
Hi Valya. Made mine yesterday tasted really salty. Maybe it’s 1 tsp instead 1 tbsp? Or its the margarine I used?
Could be. It’s normal for us. I don’t even taste salt. We are all different too. Maybe you need less salt. Try putting 3/4 of a tbsp. Thanks Alena 😉
Hi Valya, I’ve discovered your blog through Natasha’s kitchen, and I’m happy/ you have so many great recipes!!!
I’ve used already some of them and a lot are on my bucket list!
I want to start baking bread at home, it’s intimidating a little bit for me, I didn’t even have a bread machine, but a hope to get one on Black Friday;). Are you satisfied with yours? Would you recommend to buy it? If yes, please, share the brand name.
Thank you very much,
Blessings, Natasha
I’m glad you found my blog. I hear that a lot from readers that they like my blog. I really appreciate that! Thank you so much!
I have my bread maker for a long time, about 8 years now. The brand is “Sunbeam”. It’s on the less expensive brands, but still works great. I don’t believe in black Friday shopping sales. Most of the time I get things on good sale for less than on black Friday. But that’s me. If you go into “Shop” category I have the bread maker for those who wants to purchase things I have and trust. Let me know if you have any other question. Thanks Natasha! 🙂
Can I use butter instead of margarine?
Hi Vita! Thanks for stopping by! I been asked that question multiple times. I’m so used to the original recipe that I didn’t try changing ingredients. In fact, someone mentioned in the comments that the bread turned out to salty for them. So I made it again and I will agree it was a little to salty. I decided to try it with butter instead of margarine and reducing the salt. Today, I made this bread again and used 1 tsp. of salt and softened butter and it was great. I think it was even better than original recipe. So, I went ahead and reduced the salt amount and added softened butter in the post. Thanks so much! 🙂
Thank you for that info! I plan on going grocery shopping tomorrow and specifically to get everything I need to make this bread! 😉 I will be trying it out with the butter and I’ll let you know how it goes once I get to making it.
You are welcome Vita! Please do let me know how it turns out and how you like it. 🙂
Hi Valya! I made this bread yesterday using the butter instead of margarine and it turned out great! My kids kept asking for more! 😉 Thank you for sharing your recipes!
Thank you Vita! I so glad to heat that. Now you wont have to purchase french bread. You can make your own, and feed the kids with fresh and warm right from the oven! 🙂
When the bread machine is done with the mixing, does the dough need to be soft or kind of thickish?
It’s on the thicker side. The dough will be much softer after rising.
Do you add 4 cups of flour at once or 3 and a half cups in the beginning and half a cup close to the end of the mixing process?
You add all 4 cups at ones.
Valya, I just made this bread , bread tasted very good but unfortunately my bread came out kind of flat and I had to pull the dough out of the bread machine 15 minutes because the dough was running out of the machine …. What did I do wrong? Did something like this happened to anyone else? Thanks
Hi Tatyana! What is the capacity of your bread maker? This is 2 lbs bread dough, so you need 2 lbs bread machine capacity. What do you mean 15 minutes? You mean before the end of the cycle? That tells me that your bread machine is not 2 lbs capacity. Its normal for the dough to rise all the way to the top of the cap. Turned out flat? That tells me that you added more water or not enough flour than recipe says, or you let it rise to long in the warm place and it lost its shape. The dough should be a little more firm that the dough for “пирожки”, and should easily roll into nice rolls. No one told me of that problem and it never happened to me and I make this bread at least 3 times a week. Try it again and see how it will turn out. Let me know if you have more questions. Thank you so much for making my recipes. 🙂
Valya, I have Sanyo brand machine. It said the maximum for the Dough setting is 41/2 cups of flour. I felt that my dough was too runny not spongy so maybe I will try more flour next time. Also, I have used instant dry yeast, do you think it maybe a problem? Thank you!
Hm…sounds like you have right size. 4 cups of flour = to 2 lbs of dough. Give it another try, make sure you follow step by step recipe instructions. Practice makes it perfect. Thanks Tatyana 🙂
Valya, do you have a good recipe for a whole wheat bread? Thank you!
I do make dark bread. And it’s on my to post list. Thanks Jessica
this looks very nice.
Thank you!
Yammm… I don’t have dry milk . Is that ok if I skip that ?
Yes. I’ve done it without it in the past. Bread still works out, but taste better with dry milk in it.
Yummy, what a great recipe. been looking for decent bread making recipe. Thanks for sharing.
Simon
I’m glad you found a great bread recipe. We’ve been making this bread for over 15 years and it never gets old. Enjoy!
Do u have to use the bread maker or u can do the dough by hand ?
I’ve made this bread in the kitchen aid mixer, but never done it by hand. I think if you can kneed it well, it should be fine. Let me know how it turns out for you, if you ever make it by hand. Thanks for your question.
Does it turn out find if I do it in the kitchen aid mixer ?? And if I do, do it in kitchen aid maker how long do I let the dough sit to rise ?;)
Let the dough rise for at least one hour to hour and half. The bread tunes out almost the same. The only difference is the bread machine kneads the dough longer with kneading intervals while rising and the bread turns out just a little fluffier. My bread machine broke after 10 years of constant use, and I used my mixer last week to make bread, until my new bread machine arived late last week. I’m glad I got to experiment different ways of make this bread. So, yeah…, perfect timing. 🙂
Hi Valya, Does the bread suppose to have a crisp korochka? I made it today and it tastes delicious, but usually store bought have a very crisp korochka, so I was wondering if maybe I did something wrong that it very fluffy and soft.
Hi Dear. If you are comparing to a store bough french bread that in not that crisp. But it still turns out really pretty crispy. You need to let it cool on a wire rack so the bottom of the bread doesn’t get wet. I hope that helps. 🙂
Valya do you know how to make bagels? Thanks
Yes. The recipe is very similar to the sweet bread. I will post it sometime.
Five stars bread
Thank you! Homemade taste BEST 😉
Today I made this bread first time and it was delicious! Keeping the recipe??. Thanks again for the best recipes!!
That is so sweet of you ? I’m glad you like my recipes. I use this bread dough recipe for a homemade pizzas too. Give it a try. Thank you kindly for such an amazing review!
Do you use regular all purpose flour or Canadian all purpose flour? Thanks!
This is such an easy recipe, that any kind of flour works well.
I have made this bread 5 times in the last 2 weeks, we LOVE it! We eat it as sandwiches, with dinner or just plain with a pat of butter. I use unsalted butter in the dough so I add an extra tsp of salt, tastes perfect for our family. Also, when baking, I form it into 3 smaller loaves. Its a little easier to store them when theyre shorter.
That awesome! We make this bread pretty often. I like to make Italian or plain bread crumbs out of this bread as well. Thank you for amazing five-star review! 🙂
I have now been making this bread a few times per week for a couple months; figured ill add my input on the “crisp crust” question someone asked earlier. On 2 separate occasions I put the bread in the oven to bake and totally forgot about it. One time it baked over 1 hour, the other time over 3 hours (whoops!) Interestingly enough, it doesnt burn! I discovered that the longer you bake, the thicker/crispier crust you end up with. The time it baked for over 3 hours it came out of the oven golden (not burnt) and when i cut it the crust was super super crispy, but the middle was still fairly soft.
So for those looking for a crispier crist, mess around with the baking time.
Wow ?, I have to experiment baking for 1 hour. Thanks for the tip. 🙂