Bread Machine Baking: Garlic French Bread

Having a bread machine, one should use it to bake bread. Throwing all the ingredients into a pan and having someone (or something) throw it all together, knead it gently, watching it rise and baking it all in one fell swoop and then calling it your own is a dream come true! However, my favorite recipe and almost the only one I use for my bread machine is Pizza Dough.  I have tried several recipes for bread in my machine and not been impressed with most of them. So, I decided to try a bread machine cookbook, "Bread Machine Baking".  The cover says perfect every time, 75 foolproof recipes for every bread machine on the markiet including yours. Well, this is almost an uncertain challenge, isn't it? The first recipe I tried was Garlic French Bread. My family loves french bread and garlic bread, so this recipe has the garlic baked right in.

Garlic French Bread

1 Tbsp Yeast
3 c. unbleached white flour (plus an additional 1/4 c. if the dough looks very wet after the first 10 min. of kneading
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1-1/2 to 2 tsp chopped garlic
2 tbsp butter
1 c. warm wter
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Have all the ingredients at room temperature.  Place all the ingredients except the egg whites in the machine. Program fro French bread or if you want to form a baguette, then program for Manual. Press Start and follow baking instructions on pg 39.
Baking instructions; After all the ingredients are incorporated by the kneading blade, add the beaten egg whites.  Bake bread in the machine or if programmed for Manual, remove dough, then lightly grease a baking sheet and sprinkle it with cornmeal.  Shape the dough into a baguette about 10-12" long.  Place the dough on the prepared baking sheet, cover with a clean towel and set in a warm place to let it rise and  double in size. Preheat oven to 425 degrees, brush with egg glaze and bake for 10 min in center of oven, lower temperature to 350 and bake another 10 to 15 min. Bake until top is light brown and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.

 Very easy to throw everything in the machine, and I did have all my ingredients at room temperature.  I added 1-1/2 tsp. of chopped garlic as I wasn't sure how "garlicky" it would be. The baking instructions said to brush with egg glaze, but it also had already said to put the egg whites in the machine.  I assume adding the egg whites was only for baking the bread in the machine but recipe did not make that clear.

  I baked mine in the bread machine, so as you can imagine it turned out like bread and not the fancy baguette in the store.  I could hardly taste any garlic, so next time I would add more garlic.  I wasn't that impressed with the bread recipe as I thought it would be much softer inside, while it was quite condensed.  It was too stiff for sandwiches the next day, while it was stored well, but it did make great paninis!  Not a bad recipe, just not the greatest.  Definitely needed more garlic and I am not sure 1/2 tsp. more would have done the trick.