Cheerfully Chaotic Kitchen: Best-ever Cool Rise French Bread *Updated with Photos*

Bonjour!

The first recipe I'm tackling is my mother-in-law's Cool Rise French Bread... now does the Bonjour make sense?

Yes?

Good. Moving on.

Note: This recipe will make 2 loaves
2nd Note: I'll post pics once I upload them

Ingredients:

5 1/2-6 1/2 c flour (I use unbleached, all-purpose, and typically use around the full 6 1/2 c. It depends on the humidity here sometimes)
2 packets of Active Dry yeast (this is the equivalent of 4 1/2 t of yeast, if you use the jar).
1 T sugar
1 T salt (I use a bit less than the full tablespoon)
2 T melted butter
2 1/4 c warm water (very warm tap or slightly heated in the microwave... around 110-120 degrees)
olive oil

Directions:

In a bowl, stir the yeast, sugar, and salt together. Pour in the water and let it just sit there until the yeast starts doing its thing, which happens within about 5-10 minutes. It'll get a bit bubbly. Be careful not to get the water too hot. I've ruined 6 loaves of bread at once because I used too hot of water and not enough flour. Basically, if your water is too hot, the bread will rise A TON the first time and then not much later in the fridge. Then it will be wayyyyyy dense. Nothing is more depressing than super-dense french bread. The yeast should start to do this:

Add the melted butter to the bowl and stir it in. Admire how pretty the yellow butter looks as it swirls in.

Add about 4 cups of flour and start rotating that wrist! The first 4 cups are pretty easy to stir... it's the next 1 1/2- 2 1/2 that get tough. I pre-measure the full 6 1/2 cups and just keep adding it until I get a nice dough. You want it to hold together and not be too sticky. If it is, add a bit more flour when you turn it out onto the floured surface in a moment. You want it be elastic, but also leave the sides of the bowl. Also, you can use a hand mixer or stand mixer. I only do that if I'm making multiple recipes.

Once it's all mixed, form it into a ball and place it on a floured surface. I lay out a few sheets of foil/parchment paper/wax paper and then flour the surface... less mess to clean up later.

Fold the dough up a few times, pushing down a bit until you have formed a nice ball. All-in-all, you'll knead it for around 5-10 minutes. Cover the ball of dough with plastic wrap and a dish towel. Let it rise 20 minutes.

Uncover and punch down the risen dough. Divide it in half and roll out each half of dough. Each will measure approximately 8x15. Roll both up tightly like a jelly roll, starting with the long side. Pinch the lengthwise edge and tuck under the ends. Taper the ends by rolling them slightly with your hand. If you are not using a non-stick pan, spray it first with Pam or grease lightly with oil. Place both loaves on the pan and brush with olive oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap.

Refrigerate the dough for 2-24 hours. The dough will rise (just about double) in this time. After taking it out of the refrigerator, let it sit at room temperature for around 10 minutes. This is a great time to turn your oven on to 400 degrees. Just before baking, lightly brush the loaves with water (this will help form a nice crust) and then make about 4-5 slashes in the top of the loaves with a sharp knife to allow the crust to expand.