Dinner with The Lysek's: Crusty French Bread

We had soup for dinner, actually we had two different soups. Creamy potato and stuffed pepper (recipes will be posted shortly). I love to eat my soups with a big hunk of crusty bread. I use the bread as a second spoon. ...bread makes the most amazing utensil.

This is our favorite bread recipe, and it's actually quite easy to make. Bread used to intimidate me. Actually, yeast used to intimidate me. It's not scary though! Give it a try, the end result is so amazing!!

Ingredients

2 1/2 Cups Warm Water

2 tbls. Sugar

2 Packages Instant Dry Yeast *About 2 tbls. worth.

1 tbls. Salt

2 tbls. Oil *I use extra virgin olive oil.

6 Cups All Purpose Flour

1 Egg, Beaten *This is for an egg wash to give bread a nice shine and color. It is optional.

Directions

Add sugar and yeast to warm water, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Let sit 5 minutes to activate yeast. It will get nice and foamy! Add salt and oil, and give it a quick mix. Then add flour, 1 cup at a time. Once all 6 cups of flour are added, let mix with dough hook for 3 minutes. Pull dough off hook, and remove hook from machine. Cover bowl with a clean kitchen towel, and let rise 1 hour. Roll onto lightly floured surface, and divide dough in half. Shape into loaves, and cut 3 slits across the top of loaves. Sprinkle corn meal on a baking sheet, and transfer loaves. Let rise 15 minutes, while oven preheats to 400 degrees. After second rise, brush loaves with beaten egg, and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.