Mennonite Monday - Easy French Bread

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

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Last week the poll winner was Easy French Bread (pg 15W).  This was a pretty simple recipe even though there are a few things that I would do differently the next time around. I guess the main difference I would make is the amount of flour I mixed in.  For some reason the mixture was very dense and it was very hard to get the last cup of flour mixed in.  I'm not sure if it was suppose to be that way or if I lost track of the amount of flour I poured into the mixer.   Next time I will pay more attention to my dough consistency and less attention to the number of cups of flour I use.  

Easy French Bread 

2 pkg yeast

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 tsp sugar

2 Tbl sugar

2 Tbl oil 

2 tsp salt

2 cups warm water

8-8.5 cups flour

1 beaten egg

2 Tbl milk

poppy or sesame seeds

Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup warm water and 1/2 tsp sugar.  Combine 2 Tbl sugar, salt and 2 cups warm water.  Add yeast and flour.  Knead.  Let rise till double, punch down and let rest 15 minutes.  Divide dough in half, shape into long loaves and place on cookie sheets, slash tops and brush with beaten egg mixed with milk.  Sprinkle with seeds.  let rise.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.