soup bread

This recipe produces baguettes or rolls such as you'd find in a French Bakery. The bread doesn't need a starter and it can be ready in 4 hours. Now you can have bakery bread in your own home in no time at all.

Crusty French Baguettes 4 Hour Recipe – No Starter Necessary

spring water

active dry yeast

14-2/3 ounces. all-purpose flour (You may need to add extra.)

kosher salt

Vegetable spray

ice cubes

****Check the notes

Whisk together water and yeast in the bowl of a stand up mixer; let sit until yeast is foamy, about 10 minutes. Add flour, salt, and stir with a fork until dough forms and all flour is absorbed; let dough sit to allow flour to hydrate, about 20 minutes. Attach the dough hook to your mixer begin to mix the dough. Continue to knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.

Spray a large bowl with the vegetable spray and transfer the dough ball to it. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (we use a shower cap -- the kind you get in the hotels, they work perfectly) and place bowl in a cold oven.

Let dough rest until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

Transer dough to a lightly floured work surface, and shape into an 8" x 6" rectangle. Fold the 8" sides toward the middle, then fold the shorter sides toward the center, like a T-shirt. Return the dough, seam side down, to the greased bowl. Cover with plastic again, and return to oven. Let sit until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Remove the bowl with dough from oven, and place a cast-iron skillet or heavy pan on the bottom rack of your oven; position another rack above the skillet/pan, and place a baking stone or upside down rimless sheet pan on it.

Heat oven to 475 F. Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface, and cut into three equal pieces; shape each piece into a 14-inch-rope. Flour a sheet of parchment paper on a rimless baking sheet; place ropes, evenly spaced, on paper. Lift paper between ropes to form pleats; place two tightly rolled kitchen towels under long edges of paper, creating supports for the loaves. Cover loosely with plastic wrap; let sit until they double in size, about 50 minutes.

Uncover; remove towels, and flatten paper to space out loaves. Using a sharp razor, knife, bread lame, or scissors, slash the top of each baguette at a 30-degree angle in four spots; each slash should be about 4 inches long. Pull out the oven rack with the stone or baking sheet on it and, using the corner of the parchment paper as a guide, slide the loaves, still on the parchment paper, onto the baking stone or pan.

Place ice cubes in the skillet or pan (this produces steam that lets the loaves rise fully before a crust forms.)

Bake the baguettes until darkly browned and crisp, 20 to 30 minutes; cool before serving.

A French onion-y take on focaccia bread stuffed with caramelized onion, fresh thyme, and lots of shredded Gruyere cheese. A bread made from soup!

French Onion Focaccia Bread

(10.5 oz.) can French onion soup plus water

salt

all-purpose flour

extra virgin olive oil,

gruyere cheese

white onions, sliced, caramelized, and cooled

thyme leaves

In a 2 cup liquid measuring cup, add all the French onion soup and heat in the microwave until room temperature. Add warm water until you have 2 cups of liquid.

Mix the French onion soup, salt, yeast, and tablespoon of olive oil in a bowl with a spoon until dissolved.

Add flour to the mixture until a shaggy dough forms. The dough should be wet and jiggly. You may need to adjust warm water tablespoon by tablespoon.

Cover mixture with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes.

Set up a bowl of warm water for your hands, then execute four stretch and folds from North, South, East, and West over each side of the dough with wet hands for each fold. Then lift the dough and coil the dough under itself. Cover in plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes. Repeat 3 more times.

Gently add the dough to a greased 9x13 pan and spread half the caramelized onions and gruyere cheese all over the dough. Fold the dough into thirds and flip lengthwise in the pan. Lightly press it into the pan without degassing the dough then drizzle with olive oil, and top with remaining toppings.

Cover dough with plastic, and let rest for 1 hour.

Dimple the focaccia dough lightly from top to bottom, then top with whatever toppings you’d like. Bake for 20 - 22 minutes or until lightly golden and the internal temp registers 190°F.

Let rest for 5 minutes, then remove bread from pan, and let cool completely on a wire rack.

Top 2 soup bread recipes from across the web

The most viewed soup bread recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine

Top Tags

Crusty French Baguettes 4 Hour Reci...

French Onion Focaccia Bread

Top 2 soup bread recipes from across the web

The most viewed soup bread recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engineic_arrow_forward_48px

Top Tags

Crusty French Baguettes 4 Hour Reci...

French Onion Focaccia Bread

The most viewed soup bread recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine