The other day I made my Creamy Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup and of course had to have fresh bread with it. Well, I was in the middle of a writing marathon and wasn’t about to leave the house to go buy bread when I knew I could try and make it on my own.

I’ve not been very successful in the past with dough’s in general, unless I use my bread machine. Now, I don’t like to use my bread machine to bake the bread because I don’t like their shape. If I’m going to make bread, I want them to look like traditional loaves, not these square pegs.

So I grabbed my handy, dandy, old reliable Pilsbury cookbook and searched…and here’s what I found. Of course I adapted it to my bread machine and thought I might have overloaded it with flour, but the old sturdy machine hung on and whipped me up some great bread!

Quick Sourdough French Bread (adapted for a bread machine)

Add ingredients in this order:

2 tsp salt
1 cup warm warm water
1 cup sour cream (I just used it cold since I knew my machine would be heating the dough)
2 Tbs vinegar
1 Tbs sugar
4 1/2 cups flour (I used all purpose organic)
2 Tbs wheat germ (although I think you could omit if you didn’t have any)
1/2 tsp ginger (odd I know, but it works!)
2 pkgs fast-acting yeast or 4 1/2 tsp yeast

Add the first 5 ingredients into your bread machines mixing bowl. Then add flour, wheat germ, ginger. Make a small hole in the flour mixture and pour yeast into it. Turn your bread machine onto the dough setting and let it go at it. Check it after a few minutes to ensure it is mixing well and then add small amounts of water or flour if needed.

Once dough setting is complete, remove from bowl onto flour surface. Form into a ball, and try not to kneed too much, it knocks down the gluten which is what causes it to rise. Cut ball in half and then roll each half into a 14×8 inch rectangular loaf. Score with knife and let rise till doubled in size.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes. Cool and then slice. Serve with favorite soup or pasta. Makes 2 loaves.