French Onion Soup

Motivation
I made French Onion soup every weekend for about two months until I built a recipe I was happy with it.  I knew what I wanted from a French Onion soup and I ended up stealing bits and pieces from other recipes to get something that matched my mental profile.  I wanted it to really taste of caramelized onions and be thick and hearty (which doesn't seem like too much to ask).

The traditional way to serve this soup is to shred the cheese over a crouton and then broil the whole bowl of soup to make a melted cheese surface.  Which is awesome.  However, if you don't have oven-proof bowls or you want to save a bit of time and fuss you can use my less impressive, but reasonably decent stand-in method described below.

Ingredients
1.75- 2 lbs Yellow Onions (~6-8 small-medium onions)
4 tbsp Butter
1/2 tsp dried thyme (or a couple of sprigs fresh if you have it)
4 cups Beef Broth
1 baguette French Bread
Balsamic Vinegar
Gruyere Cheese

Mise en Place
Slice onions.  I have a granton edge santoku knife that I really like for this.  Cut tops and bottoms off of onions.  Slice in half.  Peel off skin.  Lay onion flat-side down and slice thinly parallel to top or bottom edge.

Slice baguette into 3/4" - 1" medallions.  Plan on 2-3 per bowl depending on girth of baguette.  Place on cookie sheet on top of a sheet of parchment paper or aluminum foil and dry out to make croutons.  (The warming draw of my oven does this well, but a oven set on 250-300 will also work).

Cut another 6-8 medallions from baguette.  These will be used later to thicken the soup.  Cut these medallions into small cubes.

Method
Melt butter in a small stock pot over medium heat.  Once button is finished foaming add sliced onions and caramelize.  Basically walk over and stir onions every couple of minutes until they have reduced to dark golden brown strands.  Plan on doing this for about 30-40 minutes.

Once onions are caramelized add brandy to the pot and cook off the majority of the liquid.  Remove most of brandied caramelized onions from the stock pot and reserve.  Add beef broth to pot and bring to simmer.  While the broth is warming up toss bread cubes into the pot and use immersion blender to pulse bread into broth thicken it up.  You can add bread in stages if you want to control how thick the broth gets.  Once bread has been blended into broth return onions to the pot and add thyme.

Simmer soup for a couple of minutes.  Taste and adjust seasoning.  I often add a splash of balsamic vinegar to add a bright acidic note.

Cut slices of Gruyere cheese and place on top of the baguette croutons.  Place under broiler to melt cheese.

To serve ladle soup into bowl and place push 2-3 cheese croutons down into soup so that cheese is level with the surface of the soup.