Danish French Bread – a Danish version of traditional French bread.
I had been feeling like making bread, and bread always goes well with pasta, so I decided to try out this Danish “French” Bread. I’m not a bread expert, so I’m not sure what makes this different from “real” French bread, but it was delicious. I’ve made French bread a few times, and I’d have to say that this is my favorite one I have tried so far. Great flavor for not a whole lot of work! But it is the best on the day it is made, and it’s pretty good the next day. But if you have any left after that, you’ll probably end up throwing it out as it gets pretty dry.
Danish French Bread
Danish French Bread - a Danish version of traditional French bread.
Ingredients
Bread
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 egg
- 4 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/2 to 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Glaze
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water and let stand 5 minutes.
- Add the egg, sugar, and salt. mix in half the flour and beat well.
- Slowly add enough of the remaining flour to make a stiff dough.
- Cover and let rest 15 minutes.
- Lightly flour a work surface and turn the dough out onto it. Knead the dough 5 to 10 minutes until the dough is springy and satiny.
- Wash and lightly grease the bowl.
- Place kneaded dough in the bowl; turn over to grease the top.
- Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled.
- Cover a baking sheet with parchment or lightly grease it. Lightly oil your work surface.
- Turn risen dough out onto the board. Knead lightly to expel air bubbles. Shape into an oblong rounded loaf and place on the prepared baking sheet.
- Let rise in a warm place until almost doubled.
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Beat the egg and milk together with a fork. Brush the loaf with the glaze.
- Slash the loaf with a sharp knife, holding the blade almost horizontally to make the cut.
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden and a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool loaf on a rack.
Cynetta says
What makes your Danish French Bread different from the more ‘authentic’ French bread is that the ONLY ingredients in French bread are yeast, water, flour and salt and there is no ‘glaze’
Italian bread differs from French bread in that it has a fat or oil added to the other 4 ingrediends and, because of that, doesn’t go stale overnight
Miss Overballe says
As I understand it, the name “French Bread” has nothing else to do with France than the fact that calling something french makes it sound fancy 🙂 it has been a way of branding white bread as more fancy than the traditional rye bread we eat in Denmark 🙂 A different theory of the name is that in order to grind the wheat as fine as needed, special milling equipment was imported from France 🙂
Deborah says
Love this – so interesting!!