I finally figured out what I was doing wrong...

In my quest to make more difficult things at home... I've decided to try French Bread. It's supposed to come out light and airy, but mine never did. As I was reading though some websites a person suggested that you throw ice cubes in the bottom of the oven while it's baking.

It worked.

Now we only have a day and a half to eat two loaves of bread before it goes stale.

Oh, but you can do so many things with it if it does go stale like breakfast casseroles, or bread pudding... yummy!

How very strange! must have something to do with the steam, eh? I'll be over to get a loaf, I love french bread!

Homemade french bread pizza! I loved the frozen kind in college, so the real kind has to be good! And it still works once the bread starts to go a little stale!

Originally Posted by twstychik

Oh, but you can do so many things with it if it does go stale like breakfast casseroles, or bread pudding... yummy!

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And homemade croutons are the best.

you could always freeze a loaf for later use, i always freeze bread!

And you could make stuffing! The bread needs to be dried out to work.

What happened when you threw the ice cubes in the oven? Do you have electric or gas? At what point in the baking did you throw them in?

Please continue making your life at home more difficult so we can benefit from it!

Originally Posted by SwampWitch

And you could make stuffing! The bread needs to be dried out to work.

What happened when you threw the ice cubes in the oven? Do you have electric or gas? At what point in the baking did you throw them in?

Please continue making your life at home more difficult so we can benefit from it!

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I thew them in 5 minutes into it. Then 10 minutes after. Then I turned my oven down from 450 to 400.

I am the proud renter of a gas oven that's a bit picky.
Not that that's complex or anything.

i love french bread i wish i knew how to make it

Yummy! I love french bread pizza..

Originally Posted by Johnnyfee

i love french bread i wish i knew how to make it

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It's not hard. Just go to The Joy of Cooking and follow the steps.

French Bread is only slightly more difficult.

You can always turn the stale bread into breadcrumbs.

Well, i haven't tried French Bread yet, but I've made a variety of super-fast breads based on one simple recipe, just changing flours, ingredients (my fave are walnuts -YUMMY!!!! ) adding or omitting spices...as long as the basic dough is still there, it won't go wrong.

Mostly I make them with baking powder which leaves them a bit too soggy and less airy, fluffy than I want them to turn out, but my mum recently found a new twist on that - a mix of yeast (a little bit) and baking powder (the rest) which is sold here.

Finally I got wonderful bread and it didn't end up dry because you couldn't cut or eat it...

I don't think anything is better than homemade french bread