I was poking around the bakery at Whole Foods, and decided to try one of their French baguettes. When I got home, I did my usual thing with French bread, cut a bit of the heel of, topped the slice with butter and a bit of salt, and thoroughly enjoyed it. This bread comes close to the loaves from Rocket Baby in Wisconsin, which supplies our fave French restaurant, and is the standard for French bread amongst our friends. Once I enjoyed it with just salt and butter, I got to thinking about adding garlic and, mebbe a bit of air fryer action.
Perfection; and wicked easy, too!
INGREDIENTS
•French bread, sliced
•2 tbsp unsalted butter
•1 tbsp minced garlic
•1/4 tsp salt
•1/4 tsp black pepper
•1/4 tsp Aleppo pepper
Note: I used coarse Birch Smoked Salt, but feel free to use your own fave.
Let the butter soften in a bowl, then add the garlic, salt, black and Aleppo peppers and stir to mix well. Feel free to do this ahead of time if you like.
When ready to cook your bread, heat your air fryer to 425º and line the tray with parchment paper.
Note: every air fryer is different. Mine needs a short preheat period, and others do not. It also seems to air fry best between 400º and 425º. My tray also slides in, and so I can pop it in the fryer with the food. If your air fryer has a basket container, do not add the parchment before you add the bread slices; the convection will pull up the parchment to the top of the basket.
Slice your bread and arrange in a single layer on the parchment lined tray or basket.
Note: the garlic butter was more than enough for eight slices, which was ample for just the two of use for dinner. If you are serving a crowd, you will need to work in stages, and keep the finished slices warm in the oven.
Air fry for five to seven minutes, until the slices are as toasty as you like. Again, all air fryers are different, so you may need to adjust your time and temperature.
Really good, perfectly toasted garlic bread slices, and with not much effort. I repeated this during the week until we finished most of the baguette.