French Bread Recipe

Combine the following ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup oil
2 tsp. salt
Pour 2 cups boiling water over and let cool.
Dissolve 2 pkgs or 2 Tbsps yeast and 1/2 tsp of sugar in 1/2 cup lukewarm water. [Adding just a pinch of sugar when you dissolve your yeast is my little secret I use in all my yeast recipes. You probably won't see that in any bread recipes out of a book.]
Combine all ingredients with 6 Cups flour while lukewarm so as not to kill the yeast. [Another little secret tip----don't add all 6 cups of flour at once. Start with about 4 cups, stir well and when the dough starts to get too stiff to stir, flour your hands and knead in the rest of the flour. In fact, I don't always use the whole 6 cups of flour. It just depends on how the dough feels. If it is fairly easy to handle and you have only use 5 1/2 cups flour, don't worry about adding the rest.]
Set aside and punch down every 15 minutes for 1 hour. If it's a little too sticky when you punch down, just flour your hands and the dough won't stick to them.
Roll and shape into 2 loaves, slash tops and place in well greased and floured French bread pan or just place on a baking stone (no pan needed). Let raise about 45 minutes and brush with a mixture of 1 egg and 1/8 cup oil beaten together.
Bake about 20 - 30 minutes at 375 degrees. Enjoy!