Herb French Bread

Hello! Hello! So I'm in a baking community on LiveJournal called BakeBakeBake. And every month they do a theme contest. This month's theme was Yeast. ~ ominous organ music playing in the background ~  So I poked around the internet for a bit and found this great recipe that doesn't require you to proof the yeast. I wanted something easy because I've never used yeast before. It also looked buttery and herby and delicious, so I decided to go for it!

Here's my contest entry!

Recipe and more photos under the cut! Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:

For the Bread: 

• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 egg

 

 For the fillings:

• 1/2 cup minced onions
• 1 minced garlic clove
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tbs minced parsley
• 1 tbs minced dill 
• 1 tbs minced basil 
• 2 tablespoons butter

 

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large bowl combine the yeast, sugar, 1 teaspoon of the salt and 1 1/2 cups of the flour. 
 
2. In a sauce pan combine the milk, water and 1/4 cup of the butter until 110°F. 

 

3. Add milk mixture and vinegar to the flour mixture and blend at low speed of the mixer until moistened. Beat at medium speed for 3 minutes.  

 

4. Stir in 1 1/2 cups additional flour to form a sticky dough. 

 

5. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead adding 1/2 to 1 cup more of flour until dough is smooth and pliable. 

 

6. Place dough in a greased bowl and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume.  

 

7. Punch down dough and roll into a rectangle shape about 16x8 inches.   

 

8. In a saucepan heat the onion, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, herbs and 2 tablespoons butter until melted. 

 

9. Spread over the dough rectangle and starting from the 16 inch side roll the dough up tightly like a jelly roll. 

 

10. Place the bread seam side down onto a greased cookie sheet and let rise until doubled in sized.  

 

11. In a small bowl, mix an egg white with a dash of water 

 

12. Preheat oven to 400°F Score bread and brush with egg wash 

 

13. Bake bread until golden brown. About 20 to 30 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture time! :)

Here are all of my ingredients:

This is the dough before rising:

And here it is after:

The herb mixture cooking:

Rolled out dough (smothered and covered!)

Rolled up like a jelly roll!

Doubled in size, scored, and eggy!

The final product!

I had a great time making this. Though, it was a lot of work and took several hours. But I was watching Frasier the whole time so I didn't mind all the waiting and kneading. Lol. The crust of the bread turned out a little dark, but still tasted fine. And at least the scoring was really pretty on half the loaf. The inside, on the other hand, was pure perfection. This bread seriously reminded me of like some kind of alfredo pasta dish. It barely lasted 2 days, everyone was having it with breakfast lunch and dinner. I think that was the best thing about this. It was my first time baking bread (and bread with yeast at that!) and not only did the dough rise correctly, and I got the "hissssssss" when I punched the dough down, but it really tasted good and had a wonderful texture and everyone in my house enjoyed eating it. I'm sure everyone can relate to that feeling you get when you make something that you and other people truly enjoy. It's super awesome and makes all the effort so worthwhile. I couldn't be happier with my decision to try out this recipe.

I hope if anyone else makes this, you enjoy it as much as I did!

 

 

Thanks so much for reading!

- Christine Frankenstein