How To Make Amazing Homemade French Bread (for under 25 cents a loaf)
Inside: Have you ever made french bread before? If you haven’t this tutorial will show you how to make french bread at home.
There is nothing quite as good as the smell of baking bread. It just fills the air awaken your sense of smell and has you craving a bite of bread almost immediately after smelling it.
If you’ve ever been near the grocery store bakery when the bread just came out of the oven, you almost can’t resist bringing a loaf of fresh warm homemade bread home. All of the stores in our area bake their own fresh french bread every day.
French bread is one of my favorite bread. The outside has nice crisp crunch as you sink your teeth into it. That crust outer crust gives way to that fluffy and chewy center of the bread. It’s great with all kind of toppings from garlic butter to homemade strawberry jam.
It works great as a spoon to mop up the last bit of soup from a bowl or to dip into a steamy warm bowl of soup. It’s great for all sorts of dishes from pasta to salad and almost everything in between. And when it’s a day old it makes a perfect french toast you could ask for.
Now if I have convinced you that you need to make a loaf or two for yourself. And you want to experience that delicious smell circulating through your home this french bread recipe is one to give a try.
French bread is an easy and frugal bread to make, I’m sharing just how cheap it is below. If you haven’t made bread before be sure to check out the bread making video below.
In the video, I’m making a few loaves of my frugal bread recipe. The steps in this how to make french bread tutorial are similar and the video will help if you haven’t made bread before.
French Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups Water warm about 110 degrees
- 1 tablespoon Yeast
- 1 tablespoon Sugar
- 1 tablespoon Oil
- 2 teaspoons Salt
- 5 to 6 cups All-Purpose Flour
Instructions
- Add the yeast, sugar and warm water to a mixing bowl. Stir and let it proof about 10 minutes the mixture should get foamy on top.
- To the yeast mixture in the bowl add 3 cups of flour, salt, and oil. Mix with a mixer or in a stand mixer for 2 minutes.
- Slowly add enough flour to make a firm dough. The dough should be firm and not sticky.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. Adding more flour as needed.
- Place into a greased bowl and let rise until the dough has doubled in size. This takes about 45 minutes to an hour.
- Punch the dough down and cut in half.
- Roll the dough into two long slender loaves.
- Place on a cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal or into a french loaf pan.
- Cut slits in the top with a sharp knife.
- Let rise until doubled in size.
- Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped on.
- Cool on wire racks.
How to Make French Bread Step by Step Photos and Tips
These are the steps I follow each time I make this french bread recipe. It turns out great, makes the house smell wonderful and taste delicious. Plus it’s inexpensive to make.
1. Proof the yeast in warm water with the sugar until foamy. If your yeast doesn’t get foamy, it’s probably bad and you need to get a new batch of yeast or your water was too hot. Keep the water right around 110 degrees.
2. Beat the mixture with only 3 cups of flour added to build the gluten in the bread. The dough should fall in a sheet-like pattern when the dough has been beaten enough.
3. Add enough flour to make a firm dough and knead until smooth and elastic.
4. Place in a greased bowl, turn the dough to coat and then let rise until doubled in size.
5. Cut the dough in half and roll out into two long slender loaves. Place on a cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal. Then cut slits in the top of the loaves and let rise until doubled again.
6. Bake until golden brown and you can hear a hollow sound when tapping on the loaf.
How Much it Cost to Make Two Loaves of this Homemade French Bread
It’s hard to believe that a bread this delicious is so frugal too. Because it’s made with simple ingredients you can make two loaves of french bread for a fraction of the cost of buying just one loaf at the store.
The hands-on time isn’t much either a few minutes to mix the dough. About 10 minutes to knead the dough. Then about a total of 5 minutes to punch down and shape the bread. Which makes this recipe just a little over 15 minutes needed in hands-on time. The rest of the time is waiting for it to bake or rise.
Cost Breakdown for 2 Loaves of French Bread
Flour $.40
Yeast $.05
Sugar $.02
Oil $.03
Salt $.004
That makes the cost of two loaves of homemade french bread $.50 or about $.25 a loaf. Of course, there will be some electricity cost involved to bake the bread but it’s still is quite a bit cheaper than store bought.
A loaf of store-bought french bread costs $1.50 a loaf, if you make the bread at home you can save $1.25 each loaf. Not bad at all for about 15 minutes of hands-on work and you get two loaves of bread too.
A Few Kitchen Tools that Help When Making This Recipe
These tools are not needed because you can do the whole process by hand with just a hand mixer, a bowl, and spoon. But if you have them or have been looking for an excuse to get them these tools are helpful.
The links below are my referral links. When you purchase through them I can make a little money at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support in this way.
- Stand Mixer, I have an Electrolux Assistant and love it. It has a new name now.
- French Bread Pan, you can use a cookie sheet
- 5 Qt Stainless Steel or Glass Bowl for Rising the Dough, I place mine in a warm oven to rise so glass or metal is a must.
Now you know how to make french bread, will you be giving it a try? I know we are never disappointed by this recipe and I hope you and your family will love it too.
Pin it for Later
More Great Bread Recipes to Try
Frugal Homemade Bread~dairy and egg free
Butter Dips Quick Breadstick~ no yeast recipe
Apple Cinnamon Quick Bread~great for dessert or breakfast
If You Like this Recipe
Subscribe and you'll get Recipes
sent right to your inbox!
Click the button below and fill out the form.
Wow, that bread sure does look good! I’ve never tried making my own before because I assumed that it would be too difficult…you make it look so easy 🙂
I think I am going to try this. I am hoping it will be a better tasting French bread than what I can normally find at stores around here. How long does it last?
Madie, It will stay fresh for a few days like most bread but if you want to store it beyond that I would wrap it up good and freeze it for later.
Is the cornmeal required?
Lilian, you don’t have to use the cornmeal.
What kind of flour are you using to get it that cheap?? 5-6 cups of good flour costs me more than this.
Lynda, thanks for asking.
It got me to thinking about this recipe and I recalculated.
Seems I didn’t calculate the flour correctly. I’ve corrected the recipe and it’s actually $.25 a loaf.
I use unbleached all-purpose flour I get at Winco Foods, their brand for $2.99 for a 10-pound package. We like the unbleached flour from Winco because it’s inexpensive and works well with all the recipes I make and I’ve been using it for years.
If you are using a different flour like Bob’s Red Mill it could be more per loaf. If you want to calculate a more accurate price for this recipe using your flour, figure on about 4 cups to a pound. This recipe would take between 1.25 to 1.5 pounds of flour. Multiply your price per pound of flour by 1.25 or 1.5 and that will give you a more accurate price. I hope that helps and thanks for pointing the price seemed low to you.
I love this bread. I’ve made it at least 50 times. I have the ingredients memorized and can whip it up in a matter of minutes. I usually set aside about 3 hours total time to make it. Although total working time is about 20 minutes. It’s 3 o’clock now and just started making 2 loaves for dinner at 6 o’clock. I use the second loaf cut about 1″ thick for French Toast the next morning . No knead, pun intended, to ever use any other recipe.
John, I’m so glad you like this recipe. Oh you are making me hungry thinking about French toast now. 🙂
I’ve never made French bread before but I love how simple this recipe is. Bread is one of my favorite things to bake, so I will be giving this one a try next time I have a bread baking craving.
how did you get that amazing brown ness without brushing with egg or milk ? All the other French baguettes I have made calls for a pan of water on the oven floor to get the crispy crust. Is it not needed with this. Thank you so much for sharing this
Janet, I don’t brush the loaves. I do throw a couple of ice cubes in the bottom of the oven but that’s it. I hope that helps.
This was a very easy and tasty recipe! But my loaves were ugly, to say the least. I’m positive it was operator error – I just got a new stand mixer and wanted to try it to knead the dough – not sure what I did wrong, but the dough was way too sticky and I was hesitant to add more flour. But I’m going try again, until I get it perfected! Perfect taste and texture!