How To Bake Store Bought French Bread? [3 Ultimate Methods]

Pieces of French bread are prepared fresh every day for a purpose. The next day, it becomes problematic. So, how to bake store-bought French bread?

If you got a unique loaf of French bread and want to heat bread to keep the flavor and texture, the ultimate option is to cook the bread in the oven for approximately fifteen minutes of baking time. 

You can also warm French bread on your stove, although some pieces of bread will end up chewy. Nothing beats preparing toast for a basic, simple warming French bread technique.

Let’s read on to discover!

How To Bake Store Bought French Bread?

It depends on the appliance you have had at home and the French bread texture you want; these three straightforward baking instructions of heating French bread take up to about fifteen minutes to be done.

Use The Oven 

Step 1: Heat French Bread In The Oven To 350 Degrees F

Reheat The Bread In The Oven

The optimum oven temperature for reheating French bread is 350 degrees F. The bread will rapidly burn. A low heat necessitates a longer cooking process, which results in dry bread.  

350°F is the oven temperature to aim for if you want a soft inside with a crispier crust. It is preferable to slice the toast after it has been reheated rather than before. If you are not cautious, sliced bread will soon heat up and make the French bread crispy and dry. 

You can cut or chop the bread if you like bread croutons or crumbs. Blend it with melted butter, a little pepper or salt, and a pinch of garlic powder for a beautiful salad topper.

Step 2: Seal The Bread In Aluminum Foil. 

Once inside, the bread remains warm, shielding the exterior and keeping it from becoming burnt. If you attempt to preheat conventional oven without wrapping it, the crust may overheat and become hard.

Step 3: Bake French Bread For Roughly 10-15 Minutes

Restrict the baking duration for tiny or thinner loaves of bread, including baguettes, to ten minutes. Bake French bread for fifteen minutes for thicker, larger loaves to allow the middle to heat up. 

Step 4: Time For Serving

Serve it straight away to avoid the French bread cooling down again. Reheating French bread in the oven the third or fourth time will undoubtedly result in a less-than-ideal flavor and texture.

You can rely on the baking instructions in this video to better understand how to reheat French bread at home.

Use The Stovetop

Cover The Bread In Aluminum Foil

Step 1: Cover The Bread In Aluminum Foil

This step will ensure that it heats evenly and avoids burning it during the reheating procedure. 

Step 2: Bake Bread In A Saucepan, And Cover It With A Lid

Take the smallest saucepan that still contains the French bread nicely. Cover the saucepan with the lid. 

Step 3: Place The Saucepan On Low-Heat Stove

Put It On Low Heat

The French bread will gradually get warmer due to the low heat. Leave the bread for a few minutes of warming before removing it and checking whether you have been cooking it adequately. 

If not, arrange baguette slices in the saucepan and bake bread for several more minutes. Cover the bread in foil and bake bread in a steamer pan over boiling water as a substitute. 

Wrap it tightly to prevent steam from escaping and softening the bread. This technique will not bring back a french bread crispier crust, but it will work on dry, hand, day old bread.

View more: How To Dry Play Doh Without Cracks

Make Toast

Step 1: Cut The Bread

Use a specific knife, which is responsible for cutting bread to cut it into pieces that are thin enough to suit in the toaster but thick enough to keep together for buttering or using it in sandwiches. 

Remember that the narrower the slices are, the faster the bread toasts and the crispier it will become. If the toaster does not fit thick, substantial slices, toast them in an oven.

Step 2: Toast It In A Toaster

Toast It On Toaster

Nothing surpasses a toaster when it comes to toasting. It’s convenient, quick, and effective. 

Arrange baguette slices inside the slots, adjust the temperature to your chosen level of doneness, then turn your toaster on by pressing down the button that descends the toast and switches it on. It’s time to eat whenever the bread jumps back up. 

Take the bread from your toaster with caution. If it is too hot to handle, you may need to wait a few moments. To remove French toast from a toaster, never use a fork or knife. Please remove it from the toaster before you unplug it.

Step 3: Try To Bake Bread In The Oven

Nothing surpasses the feel of lightly toasted toast, so this procedure adds a wonderful sophisticated accent. Bake bread in the oven to warm by turning on the grill. 

On a baking sheet, arrange your slices of bread. Place the baking sheet in the broiler or grill for a few minutes, or until it is lightly toasted to your liking. 

Butter the French toast before broiling it for more excellent toast. To prepare a delicious afternoon snack, put some melted cheese on the toast.

FAQs 

Here are some frequently asked questions we have collected while researching this field.

1. How To Heat French Bread In The Oven?

It’s time to utilize your oven’s “warm” option if you have been waiting to do so. If not, bake bread in the oven to 300 or 325 degrees F before placing it immediately on the baking sheet.

2. How To Heat Up French Bread Baguettes?

French Baguette

You got a loaf of delicious French bread from your neighborhood bakery, but it will be hanging around for the rest of the day until you serve the frozen French bread with your shrimp or handmade pea soup in garlicky, creamy scampi sauce this afternoon. It’s possible to bake bread. 

The easiest method to breathe new life into the French baguette is to reheat the bread in the oven. 

Sprinkle it with water, seal it firmly in foil, and bake bread for a few minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. If the loaf of the bread springs back when you tap the top surface of the foil, you have finished.

3. What Is the French Law To Bake Bread?

It may seem not easy to believe, or it may not be, but the French have regulations governing the components in a piece of French bread. 

If a bakery wants to call it a boulangerie, it should dough and toast its baguettes on the facilities, and it only produces the product using flour, yeast, water, and salt. 

There’s nothing else. And it is that “nothing else” that transforms a French bread crispy, soft-on-the-inside bread overnight into the brick. The dough does not have any oil to maintain it wet. 

The moisture inside the moist oven transforms into steam throughout baking, leaving the insides tender. However, once you have already removed the loaf from the hot oven, water begins to evaporate, leaving its French baguette firm inside. 

Slices of bread prepared with butter and oil stay moist for a long time. There is no moisture if there is no fat.

Related: How to Make French Toast Without Vanilla Extract

4. How To Set Up An Oven To Bake Bread?

Baking Bread Using A Stove

An amateur baker can install their oven for baking bread in various ways, some more productive than others. Place the bread in the oven racks closer to the bottom as you tend to prepare it for today’s bake. 

If you have a Baking Steel or baking stone, put it on that oven rack.  On top, place your baking pot in your large oven and preheat conventional oven to 500°F for half an hour or more before you want to bake bread. 

Remember that this way works well for a cast iron combination cooker, consisting of a saucier and a skillet that lock together, with the skillet part on the rimmed baking sheet and the saucier serving as a lid. A standard cast-iron, enameled Dutch, or stainless-steel oven will suffice. 

Bread ovens excel at two tasks that domestic ovens fail to accomplish: generating extra heat and maintaining steam. Baking bread in prepared Dutch ovens alleviates these issues and makes us more tasty baked bread at home.

5. Why Does The Bread Stick On The Baking Sheet?

After placing the bread in the oven, it likely got caught since the steamer pan was not correctly prepped. If your rimmed baking sheet is not adequately oiled or coated, the bread will almost certainly cling. 

To avoid sticking, ensure you thoroughly coat your pan or baking sheet in whatever you are using. Once you’ve made the mistake of not adequately greasing it, you’ll never want to repeat it.  

Although you use a pan or baking sheet that claims to be “non-stick,” your baked bread might still stick. They may appear successful at first, but non-stick coatings can wear out and become less beneficial with time. 

To make them fully non-stick, you need to cover them in a type of fat. It’s usually a good idea to dust your dough with flour before putting it in the tray. 

This way offers another protective layer, which may differ between the dough adhering fully or not.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this article is beneficial to you. If you are still not satisfied with this answer on how to bake store-bought french bread, please refer to Battersby to discover more helpful tips and high-quality home appliances.

Thank you for reading!