I've made a lot of bread recipes and this one has become my absolute favorite! I make a batch every couple of weeks!
Ingredients:
- 4½teaspoonsinstant yeast(two 0.25-ounce packets)
- ¾cup+ 2⅔ cups warm water(divided)
- ¼cupgranulated sugar
- 1tablespoonsalt
- 3tablespoonsunsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature
- 9 to 10cupsall-purpose flour
- 3tablespoonsunsalted butter(melted, for brushing)
Directions:
- In the bowl of a mixer, stir to dissolve the yeast in ¾ cup of the warm water, and let sit for 5 minutes. Add the remaining 2⅔ cups water, sugar, salt, room temperature butter, and 5 cups of the flour and stir to combine.
- Using a dough hook, mix on low speed and gradually add the remaining flour until the dough is soft and tacky, but not sticky (you may not need to use all of the flour). Continue to knead until a soft ball of dough forms and clears the sides of the bowl, about 7 to 10 minutes.
- Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl and turn it over so it is completely coated. Cover with plastic wrap and set in a draft-free place to rise until doubled in size, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
- Turn the dough out onto a clean, lightly floured surface. Gently press it all over to remove any air pockets. Divide the dough in two and, working with one piece at a time, gently pat it into a 9x12-inch rectangle. Roll up the rectangle, starting on the short end, into a very tight cylinder. Pinch to seal the seams and the ends, tuck the ends of the roll until the bread, and place into greased 9-inch loaf pans. Cover the loaves loosely and place in a draft-free area until doubled in size, 30 to 45 minutes.
- Position an oven rack on the lowest setting and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Brush the loaves with some of the melted butter. Bake the loaves for 30 to 35 minutes, rotating halfway through, until golden brown (an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read 195 degrees F).
- Remove from the oven and immediately brush with more of the melted butter. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the pans and cool completely before slicing. The bread can be stored in an airtight bread bag or wrapped tightly in plastic wrap at room temperature for up to 4 days. It can also be frozen for up to 1 month.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes:
Note #1: This recipe can be halved to make only one loaf. Note #2: You can substitute active dry yeast for the instant yeast. Ensure that it is indeed activated in step #1 before continuing, and note that the rise times will be slightly longer. Nutritional values are based on one serving
Nutrition:
Calories: 253kcal
Fat: 4g
Saturated fat: 2g
Cholesterol: 9mg
Sodium: 352mg
Potassium: 85mg
Carbohydrates: 46g
Fiber: 2g
Sugar: 2g
Protein: 6g
Vitamin A: 105%
Calcium: 10%
Iron: 2.7%
I have been using this recipe for the last year always turns out perfect. I have used both active dry yeast and instant with fantastic results.
This recipe looks pretty good, I’m planning to try it out, but I only have small loaf pans. Does anyone know what temperature it would be if I split it into 4 small loaves?
I make this recipe every week now for our regular staple of bread. Its fast and easy and family and friends love it, they think I am amazing that I make bread every week but they don’t realize how easy this recipe is! Freezes well. The recipe makes 2 huge loaves so I now use three loaf pans so we can fit a slice in the toaster haha!
This looks delicious!! I really want to make it but I’m unsure which kitchen aid to buy, which one do you use?
Best bread ever. Good recipe. I’ve made it many times.
Making my second batch of this bread! My husband doesn’t want to buy bread anymore, he loves this one so much!
So easy and it comes out looking like I bought it at a bakery! Thank you!
Looks great. FYI, the recipe adjustment is incorrect. If you set it to half (10 servings) the water does not adjust properly. In fact, it ends up being more water than flour.
It turned out perfect! So tasty!!!! It’s a keeper. One of my friends already wants to buy a loaf from me next time.
This is an absolute favourite in our house! We don’t purchase bread anymore. One question… Would it be possible to substitute whole wheat flour instead of all purpose?
can i triple this recipe to make 6 loaves at a time?
This was a very good recipe-maybe today was a day to bake! Anyways it tastes good, but the real deal is that I can slice it without mushing the whole loaf! Always seems to be a problem. This bread stood up to the knife and was moist and just terrific!
Turn the loaf on its side to slice
..less likely to smush.
Great recipe but it would more effective if everything was in weight rather than cups and spoons.
Wow, Michelle- Brown Eyed Baker, this is a magnificent recipe!🍞 I did use 6 cups of flour in step 1. And a little bit more in step 4. Was worried that this extra cup of flour would mess the recipe up. My bread wouldn’t rise or end up looking like yours. Wrong! All turned picture perfect. Will definitely make this recipe again and again! Thank you so much. Will be throwing away all my other bread recipes. 😊
Tastes great and easy to slice! Love this everyday bread!
Best white bread I have EVER made. Turned out perfectly!
2nd review, this is just about the most fool proof perfect recipe. Every single time, the wow factor when the beautiful loaf comes out of the oven. I have made it 3 times now, and a part of me wants to try and experiment with different recipes, but I love this so much that I end up making this instead. Delicious soft bread, that easily lasts a week if kept covered, without any change in texture. Thank you so much!
Lisa
Made this yesterday. “For the love of cheese and crackers” this was so good! I’ve never made bread before and it was easy and so so good. Since it very cheep to make, this will be are sandwich bread from now on. No more store bought bread for my family. Thank you for the recipe.
This has become our go-to recipe! I replaced the 1/4 c granulated sugar with 1/3 c honey. It gives it a bit more flavor. And I put a pan of hot water in the oven with the bread. I find the steam makes it a bit fluffier and softer. My only gripe is that I can never seem to get the bottom to brown all the way. And that’s less likely to be a problem with the recipe than it is with my pans. I tried baking it a bit longer but it didn’t really help much. I’ll have to fiddle with it, I guess.
But other than that, it’s perfect. Better than storebought! :)
This bread is absolutely delicious. A few notes: I halved the recipe as I only have one loaf pan, and the loaf was ENORMOUS. If you’re making one loaf, I’d recommend thirding the recipe instead of halving it because it ends up pretty huge for sandwich making! I was really grateful Michelle provided the temperature to bake the bread to, because it took over 50 minutes for this beast to cook all the way through. I made sure I took the temperature at a few different depths to make sure it was fully cooked. Next time I make this bread, I’m going to try to third the recipe and use the metric instructions Aaron provided in the comments. But I will make it again, because it really is tasty!! Super moist, nice crust, great crumb (be sure to let it cool completely before cutting in if you can resist!!).
AMAZING!!! If anyone gives this less than 5 stars it’s clearly on their end.
Thanks for the recipe
I baked 2 breads today and it came out fantastic just like you described it
this will be my no 1 bread as from today
I have made this bread every week since Covid outbreak. What I like is to use leftover potato water from boiled potatoes as the water. It seems to make the bread even more moist! Also, because the loaves are SO tall, I cut them in half, and freeze them and we take out half a loaf at a time for the two of us. I have learned that it is hard to cut a straight slice with the bread being so high so I take half the loaf, cut it down the middle, and then slice them into half slices. This works really well. I usually only use about 8 81/2 cups of flour, and find that is plenty. I am going to try adding some whole wheat flour to my next batch and see how that goes. Love this recipe, and all my friends do too.
I love this bread. It’s so easy to make and turns out perfect every time. I don’t use a mixer, just do by hand. Have made rolls from it as well.they look and taste as if I bought from bakery.
Great Recipe! super easy also!
Thank you for the recipe, I made half the recipe to make just 1 loaf., it came out beautifully, but I see that it is not as soft on the next day as it was on the day I baked it. Any reason why that is. Also if I had to knead this by hand, how long should I knead it for. Thanks
After I put these on my cooling rack, I went to the living room to relax. I then heard my adult) daughter in the kitchen. “Ow! It’s hot! Ow! Ow! Ow! Hot!” Then I heard my son (also an adult) say, “well it DID just come out of a 400 degree oven. Do you remember what a hot pad is for?” I giggled. Thank goodness natural selection skipped over my family! Sooooo good it worth burning your hands for! Hahaha!😂
awesome recipe. I am new to baking bread at home. what I noticed is that the bread became very dry after a couple of days. is there a way to keep it soft. I t was soft the day I baked and a couple of days after that.
My bread (I did a half recipe) came out with a hard crust and I’m not sure what to do about that. The inside was nice and soft but it separated where it was rolled. In other words, my slices have a spiral cut through them. I ended up using a little less than 4.5 cups of flour and i wonder if that was too much? If the dough had been a little bit stickier maybe it would have baked through with the layers adhering. Or maybe there was too much flour on my countertop when I rolled it up? I really wanted to get this right!
You don’t need to use flour on your counter. Your dough should be tacky, but not wet. Oll your dough tight and seal the seam. Put seam side down.
Hi there,
I would love to make this bread. It looks amazing! I was just wondering though if you knew how big these 9 inch bread tins are in lbs? Describing them as 9 inches doesn’t really give me enough information to go on. I’m from the uk, so not sure if there’s a difference in what measurements are used? Also, the link For the bread tins doesn’t work for my country. If you’re unable to let me know what lbs the bread tins are, would you be able to give me all dimensions of the bread tins used so there’s some context…..length, width and depth.
Thank you for your time, from Laura.
I believe they are 1 1/2 lbs
Can I use regular yeast, not instant yeast?
I have attempted to make bread for years and failed for one reason or another. I have tried many recipes, but this one tops them all. It is the BEST bread I’ve ever made and I swear it gets better every time I make it. My family loves it. Thanks for giving us this recipe.
I’d like to make a few unbaked loaves to freeze. Any recommendations??
Hi , I freeze bread a lot. Just do not let it rise the second time. Freeze at that point. Then when thawing it can rise at that time.
These loaves are ginormous ! I had to take the dough out of my KitchenAid because it’s too small as the dough was creeping above the dough hook and into the motor. So I kneaded it by hand for 10 minutes and then followed the recipe as is the rest of the way. I pressed the loaves and put them in the pans and when they rose so quickly I knew they were going to rise even more in the oven. Some bread recipes only use one packet of yeast ( for 2 loaves) and I think if I were to try this again, I would use only one packet of instant yeast. I have not read any other reviews but before I try this recipe again I will be sure to do that in case there are some troubleshooting tips. The only good thing I did do on my own was I scored the tops of the bread so that they would not fall to one side or another. It’s still in the oven so I’m looking forward to trying it later.
Can I use milk instead of water?
Okay, I’m pretty sure that’s the ultimate way to make bread at home!
My kids, who like to pretend they’re carb free, could not resist. This recipe is fabulous, easy to follow, and produces great results.
I tried my best but these nonsense volume metrics produced a very ugly result. This not reproducible at all.
David, I weighed the flour for half the recipe. My measurements were 1.1.9 lbs of flour. 2 1/4 tsp yeast 1 1/2 tsp salt. (don’t let the salt go anywhere near your yeast, add it after the yeast or before and mix it into the flour) 1/8 c sugar ( yeast likes sugar and you can mix it in with your yeast as you proof it as that’s what it eats) 6T Warm water for proofing your yeast. Add 1 C +3 T +1 1/2 t water
Made this today, it was perfect and easy. My loafs came out just like yours are pictures. My pops and boyfriend were so stoked when they saw them rise, and again impressed when we pulled them out of the oven. And again when we had a slice. Some serious homemade goodness. My dad’s response was ” this is the kind of bread that will make you fat”. Thank you for sharing this gem.
I made this recipe using whole wheat bread. I haven’t tried it yet but it sure looks good. The recipe was easy to follow and was easy to make.
I really love this recipe. However my loaves are massive. Two slices would be far to big for a sandwich. Is there anyway to reduce the size? Has anyone tried making 3 loaves with it or take some out to make rolls.
Hi Amanda, You could definitely turn this into 3 medium-sized loaves if you prefer. You can also make rolls, as well!
Wonderful could u use some wheat flour
If i wanted to make e6 loaves do i just double everything
Thanks
Hi Lucille, I would start substituting 25% wheat flour and see how that works for you and then increase from there. Keep in mind you may need a bit more water to get the right consistency if you use wheat flour. And yes, you can double the recipe, but it will likely be too big for a normal stand mixer.
I‘ve never been much of a baker, but lately I have been broadening my horizons to avoid extra trips to the store. This recipe gives consistently good results. The first time I made it, I made a single loaf, so if I messed it up, I wouldn’t have wasted as much flour. It was so good it disappeared in about a day. This time, I made a double batch and they look and smell just as fabulous. Thanks for the recipe!
it turned out exactly like your pic and like you said, this IS the best white bread recipe, and I have tried many. Perfect go to recipe. I had a little extra, spread some butter and sprinkled some sugar and cinnamon. Rolled and folded it in several layers- it also turned out so yummy. Thank you, Michelle! People give it a try, you will never buy store bought.
I LOVE this recipes! I make it every weekend now!
I love this RECIPE!!😍😍😍
Thank you Aaron!!!!!!!! why are all these recipes in cups?
Aaron thank you for doing the math, and breaking the recipe down in metric measurements! Question on the full recipe the water measurements are in ml. However on the half recipe the measurements for the water are in grams. Is that correct? Obviously I’m not a mathematician.
I made this recipe yesterday and it was a HUGE hit with my family. We wanted a sandwich night, but I was out of sandwich bread and couldn’t justify a trip to the store or Instacarting to satisfy the need for a loaf of bread. To be honest, since the quarantines, I have noticed that when we can find bread and rolls, they go moldy much quicker now. I have twice now had a brand new and unopened package of two different brands of hamburger buns from Sam’s that were moldy when I went to use them—like literally one-two days after purchase and they did not have their expiration dates nearing. I don’t know what is going on with that. Perhaps breads are sitting in refrigerated trucks too long and getting condensation? At any rate, this recipe is a lifesaver. I’ve shared it (and your blog) on a number of my cooking groups and on Emenator.com. The loaves are beautiful, the bread is delicious with a soft crumb that held up wonderfully to my homemade chicken salad. I’ll be making these every few weeks from now on. Thank you for sharing this excellent recipe!
I rarely comment on recipes but had to with this one! its really really great, best I have tried in 3 months of baking bread 4 times a week while in quaratine in Ireland. I found I did need to add more flour as it was quite sticky at first but it could be because I added too much water in the beginning. The recipe made one large loaf, the tip of keeping it in the tin was great as my son loves soft white bread, and also managed a tray of cinnamon rolls too, perfect dough as it stays soft and not dry and crumbly like other cinnamon roll doughs i have used in the past. I have finally found my go too sandwich bread recipe which I am very happy about.
I have made this recipe multiple times now and it is still my favorite one to make. I tried doing a half batch once and it did not come out as well.
I was wondering if you have ever turned the second loaf into another kind. Like a cinnamon swirl or cheese swirl bread before? If you have any pointers and what ones have to successfully made with the second?
Hi Laura, I’ve used this for dinner rolls, as well as pepperoni bread. Many others have commented that they’ve done things like cinnamon bread, cheese bread, cinnamon rolls, etc. It’s a super versatile dough; you could do almost anything with it!
Hi Laura, Yes definitely! I’ve done dinner rolls and pepperoni bread and many others have mentioned using it for cheese bread, cinnamon rolls, cinnamon swirl bread, etc. It’s super versatile and you can truly do almost anything with it!
Maybe tell people when they use the portion calculator to half the recipe, it doesn’t half the water 😡
What a waste of ingredients ☹️
hey i just have a question, i love the bread recipe but was just wondering if i can make double the recipe and store it in the fridge to make a loaf every day or two?
I assume you mean keeping the dough? I’ve never tried to ferment it in the fridge and bake it off over days, so I couldn’t say how it might turn out.
Great recipe! This is the second time I’m trying it because the first time came out so well! I specifically timed out each step to make sure I didn’t over knead the dough this time. The first batch came out SUPER tall and fluffy but it was hard to slice evenly because it was pretty crumby (texture-wise, flavor-wise it was amazing). I froze the second loaf (after it was baked) and the texture improved a bit and was much easier to slice. Perfect for sandwiches. I had one problem the first time I made this recipe: the dough kept climbing the hook. I kept adding flour until it wouldn’t stick so badly but I think I ended up either over flouring the dough or over kneading it. It was a little dry but not too bad. This time I just hand mixed it until I achieved the desired stickiness and then used the mixer until the sides of the bowl were semi-clean and the dough formed a ball.
This batch I halved the recipe because I am running out of flour, but I had some bread flour on hand so I’m excited to see how that affects the bread. The rise was not as dramatic as the first batch but hopefully, it doesn’t affect the outcome too terribly. Can’t wait to bake this batch and see the finished product!
I made this bread today after my sourdough starter stopped. It came together very quickly. I set it in a greased bowl to rise, and it rose so much that it took me by surprise! I divided it into two loaves as directed and was again surprised at how much it rose when set aside to proof. Baking it caused it to rise even more. It definitely doubled and looked almost like two loaves of bread; one on top of another. I probably could have made it into 4 loaves. I will be making it again, as this bread is so delicious! I plan on dividing it into 3 loaf pans, rather than 2. Thanks for an incredible and simple recipe!
Hi! I’ve used your recipe 4 times now. It’s the most perfect recipe for sandwich bread :D it slices like a dream and the taste is phenomenal! I have 2 long loaf pans that will make 24 slices the same size that you buy in the store. I’ve never been able to get that many slices out of a loaf because the bread is always too fluffy. But yours is perfection! My son is disappointed when we run out in between and I have to pull a store loaf from the freezer, lol! Because we’re a wheat family, I tried a 5th time with a half recipe and subbed wheat for 1/3rd of the flour. It turned out really well. But, now I’m looking to see if you’ve got an actual recipe for wheat. If not, I’ll be sticking with this :D
So, thank you!
Hi Wendy, I’m so thrilled you and your family are enjoying the bread! And I do have a whole wheat sandwich bread recipe :) –> https://www.browneyedbaker.com/whole-wheat-sandwich-bread-recipe/
Hi there!
I’ve never made bread before, but this recipe looks like one I can handle (fingers crossed). However, I have a couple of questions before getting started. The only loaf pan I have is the Wilton long aluminum 16″x4″. According to the Wilton website, this pan holds a double loaf recipe of any standard bread. Since your recipe is for two loaves, I thought it would work well in my case. Since I will be baking the entire recipe in one pan, are there any tips you can give me for using this pan with your recipe? Is there anything I should know about bake times since the pan is aluminum?
Thanks!
L.
Hi Lori, It sounds like it should work if the website states it fits two loaves (keep in mind these are large loaves). I don’t think any modifications need to be made due to an aluminum pan. Enjoy the bread!
This is the best recipe the bread is delicious light and it is fluffy. Delicious flavor will be making this recipe often. Highly recommend this recipe for white loaves of bread.
Can this recipe be easily doubled for a larger batch? Would it require any modifications to the quantity of the ingredients?
Hi Sylvie, This makes two very large loaves (or three medium loaves) as-is. You can certainly increase it, but I don’t think you’d be able to use a stand mixer for that much dough – you’d need to mix and knead by hand.
You are absolutely right, Michelle, this is the BEST BREAD RECIPE EVER! I’ve baked it twice and both were successful, even the first time when I overproofed it, it was still delicious even very fluffy. Thank you for this wonderful recipe. I’ve been looking for one like this for a long time.
My efforts failed. 80% of the loaf was raw. What did I do wrong?
Have I told you how much I love this bread? Dough is lovely and silky…easy to work with. I’ve made it several times and find that on damp rainy days, I need a little more flour and less on sunny days. Today, I froze one loaf and made 12 sandwich rolls, which I baked this morning. They are perfect for hamburgers too!
Hi. I never usually leave reviews but felt I had to. This is the tastiest, lightest fluffiest loaf I have ever baked! I live in England and had to to translate the recipe into pounds and ounces (I still haven’t got used to grams) but the ingredients were spot on and I followed the instructions word for word. Thank you so much xx
Followed the recipe with the exception of substituting 1 cup of white flour for whole wheat and added some whole flax seed and sunflower seeds. I have a Kitchen Aide stand mixer and the dough was too much for it so had to knead by hand. Used the 9 inch bread pans but the bread baked up too high with one loaf quite ill formed. The loaves are cooling so still too warm to slice and try. Disappointed in the appearance however taste will tell. If I make this again I would 1/2 the recipe but still bake 2 loaves.
Rhe exact same thing just happened to me and I didn’t make any subs. Any pointers?
Wow. I saw this recipe today and I made it this morning, just about taking it out of the oven😍😍😍😍
This is my first tryout and I for it so on point. I am a Nigerian and I love it
Hi Michelle! Well, I’ve save and made both this bread recipe, halved and also your American loaf recipe. I did a comparison of the two, noting the differences. I was just curious if, over time, if you have a preference for one over the other? My guess is that the American loaf, because of the milk, has a more tender crumb and lasts longer? (Note: I’ve discovered that I can bring bread back by using one of those steamer inserts and steaming the bread for a few seconds…I started doing this because here in Houston we have a lot of Asian style bakeries…tangzhou…and steaming brings back the breads and pastries the next day or so) .Best regards and thanks.
Can I use strong bread flour ?
Hi Emma, yes you can use bread flour for this recipe.
Found this recipe today and gave it a try! It was super delicious and will be my go to bread recipe going forward!
Can I use milk instead of water?
Yes, I think that would be fine.
I have been looking at this recipe for a while and since I had time I decided to make it. I am really glad I did! The loaf looks beautiful and the crumb is great. You can even see the spiral on the ends where the loaf is tightly rolled. We had some for breakfast this morning and it was truly delicious. Thanks for another great recipe.
My mother loved wheat bread, so that was the recipe she made when I grew up and didn’t like bread. Thus, I have been on a search for the bread recipe of my dreams for most of my adult life. THIS IS IT. I have been making this throughout the pandemic and giving away loaves of bread to neighbors, because, for me, this recipe makes three big loaves with nine cups of flour. It’s been good to be of some service to people while we can’t get near anyone, and I’m SO grateful for this recipe! THANK YOU, Brown Eyes!!
I was looking for a lighter bread ,came upon this recipe. First time I made it it came out beautifully. So yummy. With four adults in the house this won’ t last long. I just started makin g bread. This will be a keeper for sure!,
Awesome bread recipe. The loaves are fluffy and high. Best bread recipe I know, except for my mother’s.
Soybean oil is added to bread recipes as both a preservative and as a bread emulsifier. Essentially, that soybean oil is what makes your bread light and fluffy. Without some form of preservative and emulsifier, be it lecithin (in this case soybean oil) but also comes from sunflower as well, asorbic acid (vitamin C), added vital wheat gluten, or vinegar your bread is going to be dense and have a short shelf life. It will be wonderful when it first comes out of the oven but quickly become dense, dry, and crumbly. I recommend looking into some of these other preservative/emulsifiers to add to your recipe. A great recipe can turn into an amazing one.
I just made this, and it’s one of the best loaves of bread I’ve ever made. Wonderful recipe, video, and instructions. This is why I turn to your website for recipes more than pretty much any other online! Thanks for sharing. I will be making this regularly to stash in the freezer.
Best bread receipe ever…very impressed. Used smaller bread pans i.e. 8 x 4 size and cut back on amount of dough per bread pan. Used extra dough for 6 beautiful cinammon buns. Next time will make 3rd loaf a cheese bread! Like the crispy crust. Found though that my oven smoked a bit due to butter on the crust.
This is the easiest to make, best tasting white bread in the world. I’ve made it twice in the last three weeks. The second time I halved the recipe and used smaller bread pans. It’s fool proof. I’ve made chocolate babka, hamburger buns, crumpets, tortillas, pizza dough and this is by far the easiest of them all. I’m giving this as a Christmas present This year instead of the normal spiced zucchini or ginger bread loaf. Nothing is more comforting than a piece of jammy toast.
Oh my gosh. This is THEE best bread recipe ever. No joking!!
Your ingredients are wrong. 10 cups of flour is wrong
I thought 10 cups sounded like a LOT of flour. I made a loaf of bread today….similar recipe except less water, and used oil instead of butter. and I only used 3-1/4 C flour.
They are not wrong, it says 9 to 10 cups and it does note that you may not need all of it. In the summer I use more flour than in the winter.
I’ve tried to make bread many times and I always produced bricks. With this recipe I got deliciously light and beautiful loaves. My wife could not stop eating it! I did make one substitute by using 12oz of beer to try to ensure a good rise. No more store bought bread for me😋
Because I live in humid Florida I use 50 g less water in bread recipes. This adjustment worked perfectly so I only needed less than 9 cups of flour. The dough rose beautifully. I almost thought it would explode from my loaf pan. Thank you for this recipe. Would you consider adding gram measurements next to the Cup measurements in parenthesis? This would make it so much easier for those who like to weigh their ingredients.
Hi Val, I am working on getting the weights inline in one place, but if you click the link below the ingredients that says “metric” you will find the gram measurements there. Hope that helps!
Third time I’ve made this bread. I half the recipe as there are only two of us . For those tempted to add more flour, don’t. Sticky dough get so much taller! Sandwiches, toast, French toast, grilled cheese. This week we’re going to try a thick slice of garlic toast next to our St Louis style salad! This is our favorite quarantine guilty pleasure.
I am so happy I found this recipe! I make this all the time – so easy and my family loves it! I usually half the recipe and I often make rolls instead! Thanks!!
Like others, I ended up having to add significantly more flour than the recipe called for. The loaves are currently in their second proof/rest and are doing fine, so I’m not worried about them being properly. However, I am not happy about using 14-ish cups of flour for two loaves of bread. Yes, this recipe works and I’m sure it tastes fine, but I may use a different recipe next time because May 2020 is not the time to be using nearly a whole 5 lb bag of flour in two loaves of bread.
Wow! I only had to use 9 cups. I wonder why you had to use so much??
It may be because I live in the south, so it’s super humid here all the time. The bread was fine overall, but it was too sour for my taste and super heavy (likely due to the amount of flour). They looked beautiful, and my husband liked them, but I’ll go with a different recipe next time.
Just add LESS water. It’s an altitude issue. I live in the mountains in Tennessee. I used 9 cups of flour and all the water called for in the recipe, but I also “felt” my dough as I went. Remember, the recipe calls for the dough to be tacky but not sticky. Add only as much water as needed to provide you with the tacky dough using the flour amounts that you prefer (I imagine in Florida you could get away with 8-9 cups of flour). I lived in South Florida for 17+ years, so I have experience baking in the different altitudes. You are basically at sea level in Florida, so just adjust the liquid in your recipes to allow for that adjustment :)
Instructions and ingredients don’t mention oil; but it is in video and article …guess I should have read and viewed that first but you might want to update recipe and instructions to include
The video does not mention oil. It does show butter being added, which is also mentioned in the recipe.
There’s no oil in the recipe or the video. Only 3 Tablespoons of room temperature butter. ???
Hi Michael, There is not any oil in the recipe or in the video?
There is no oil in the video, there is melted butter. You must be talking about some other video.
Excellent bread, thank you for the recipe,
The video has oil but neither the ingredients nor instructions mentioned oil?
Excellent recipe!! I am new to making bread from scratch. Since I tried the basic recipe and it turned out so well, I decided to make cinnamon raisin and five seed bread loaves. As my kitchen Aid mixer is not large enough to handle the full recipe, I simply halve it. So far, everything has turned out great! Thank you for making it so easy!
Awesome
I’ve been making this same recipe for decades since I first found it as a new bride back in the 70s in the Betty Crocker Cookbook I had received as a shower gift (only difference is that one uses shortening where yours uses butter in the loaves.) It really IS the best!
But you did it one better… The original recipe calls for removing the loaves from the pan as soon as they come out of the oven. I left it in the pans for the 10 minutes that you do. What a world of difference! Gone was the crispy crust, replaced with a soft, chewy one. That, to me, made a completely different bread! My husband can’t get enough.
A trick I learned over the years to have it freshly baked whenever you want it: You can par-bake the loaves for 22 minutes. Cool completely, then wrap and freeze. When you want the bread, remove from the freezer, brush with butter, and finish baking in a preheated oven for 14-15 minutes, until golden. Follow the directions as written at this point.
Should have added that when you remove the loaf from the freezer, put it back into a loaf pan to finish baking. When done, leave it in the pan for 10 minutes before turning the loaf out of the pan to cool.
Thank you for this extra tip on par-baking!
I tried a recipe very similar to this one yesterday and my loaves came out very good. My recipe is the good old fashioned Jamaican hard dough bread. One would say it’s the straight dough method using butter and not milk.
My family loves the bread because it’s soft and nice. However, I didn’t use as much flour and I got 2 loaves of bread per double batch. For a double batch (2 loaves)I used 7cups flour to 8 tbsp or 1 stick butter, 3 tsp yeast, 2 cups plus water, 4 tbsp sugar, 3 tsp salt. I used my hand 1st to bring the dough together before tossing it in the mixer. I used my hands for the finishing touch. I let it sit in the bowl for 1 hr to rise and after rolling the dough into 2 loaves and placing it in the pans I let them sit for another hour. I baked the bread at 350 degrees for 30 mins or so.
Trust me, the best bread ever.
Oh my! I’m a pretty experienced bread baker and I have to say this may be the best white bread I’ve ever made! I didnt change or modify a thing and it came out perfect albeit VERY tall! Great flavor, perfect soft texture! I suspect the dough might also work very well for cinnamon rolls. Next time I may make cinnamon raisin bread or some other flavor variation. But fyi it is truly amazing as is!
I tried this recipe with some modifications. I used 5 cups of all-purpose flour with 4 cups of whole wheat flour. The bread came out very well. It was a little dense but the air bubbles were all uniform without any large pockets. Excellent recipe. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
Sugar feeds the yeast, helps in browning, and flavor as well as tenderizing…I would not cut it back….
I make all our bread and I’ve NEVER seen a recipe for only two loaves use that much flour. 5-6 cups flour is the norm for 2 loaves of bread. So why so much flour? It seems extremely excessive and with your amount of flour one could easily get at least 4 loaves out of this recipe.
I just don’t get it.
Hi Janis, This recipes makes two very large loaves of bread. Some folks split it into three loaves!
Do u need to put so much sugar?
Thanks for this… I baked it with the Tang Zhong method, which usually means increasing the liquid somewhat.
I found I didn’t have to, though, which makes me suspect that for some types of flour and in humid conditions, this could, indeed be too much moisture.
Some recipes require a high moisture dough, though.
Some wheat flours retain more moisture naturally, and others are very much affected by environment and storage.
Nobody has done anything wrong, you just need to go cautiously and adapt to your local conditions.
I liked that it was a very frugal loaf with minimum ingredients. Turned out well.
Wow. .. Best recipe….love it!!!! make often… always turns out great And yummy……Thanks for sharing
This is a great recipe! I encourage you, if it didn’t work out the first time – try again! This recipe has its rating for a reason, so persevere and you will be grateful for the results. I certainly was! I would recommend using the advised instant yeast, having tried it also with active dry, and this also works perfectly kneading by hand, adding a couple of minutes to the stand mixer kneading time. Thanks so much!
I can only find Active dry yeast. how exactly do you activate it? I am a good baker, but yeast really scares me and I would like to overcome that fear.
Thank you
It’s easy to do. Take 1/2 cup boiling water pour in a bowl add 1 cup cold water to the boiled water. Check temp . It should be between 100 and 110 degrees . Put in 2 teaspoons of yeast stir to dissolve add 1 teaspoon of sugar stir to dissolve sugar. Set aside for 30 minutes to an hour. If liquid foams and bubbles form your yeast is good!
I usually stick a finger in my warm water to make sure it’s warm but not too hot. I added the yeast evenly over the water, stirred then added a tsp of sugar and had frothy yeast in less than 5 minutes! Ive never seen a recipe that says to wait more than 5- 10 minutes for your yeast to froth!
Hi Linda, The first step (letting the yeast sit in the warm water) should activate it. You can include a teaspoon of the sugar in there, which sometimes can help give the yeast a boost. Enjoy the bread!
What if you have your own starter yeast? How much of that would replace the dry yeast?
I am not sure, I’ve never used a starter for this recipe. If you have a rule of thumb you’ve used for other recipes, I would start there.
I have made this recipe three times and it is the best. I used one half of the dough for a loaf of bread and the other half for hamburger buns or sandwich rolls. Fabulous.
This is the first bread recipe that I didn’t screw up! My kids love it, thank you :)
Do you use the WS 1 lb. pan or the 1.5lb pan?
The 1.5 lb pans!
I am a beginner in baking bread bur every time I do it, it calms my senses. Baking is indeed therapeutic and my family loves it too. Thank You for a fail-proof recipe, looking forward to be a good baker soon!
My loafs came out super pretty but very very dense. They smelled wonderful but the dough is chewy and they feel zvery heavy! WHAT DID I DO!? I though i followed thr reipe to T. This is my firat attempt at bread so any thoughts will br appreciated!
Did you activate the yeast first?
I had so much fun making this bread! This is my third time ever baking bread of any kind, and I had some issues, but in the end, it all worked out! Next time I’ll halve the recipe, because my kitchen aid mixer wasn’t quite big enough. The dough kept trying to escape, and after several attempts at pushing it back down, I gave up. There was flour everywhere! So it wasn’t kneaded for more than 4 or 5 minutes, max. I put it in my super big glass bowl, and it got so big it nearly overflowed! When I shaped the loaves I thought they were too big for my pans, so I made three instead of two. I only had active dry yeast, but it seemed to rise fast anyway. I got a big bag of bread flour at the wholesale club, so I used that. In the end, it made beautiful loaves and tasted wonderful. Despite my blunders. Thanks for the recipe!
Took me a few tries, because I am always fiddling with recipes. I subbed out part of the water for evaporated milk, only because I have so much of it to use up. It was delicious (but prob totally unnecessary). Super important to butter the bread as directed, and keep it in the pan after pulling out of oven for about 10 minutes like directed. It ensures your bread will be soft. Not only is this great sandwich bread, it is really delicious toasted. It toasts up light and crunchy and is a total treat! Thank you for this wonderful simple and delicious recipe.
Came out great! Definitely going to be a weekly thing in our house. Have made it 2x now. A longer second proof made it fluffier, compared to the first time I made it. And I didn’t bother to dissolve the yeast first, and it still came out perfect. Just mixed everything minus the melted butter in a bowl, kneaded by hand, and left to rise.
In case anyone out there prefers weights to volumes, here it is converted:
[ Makes 2 Loaves]
7g yeast
177ml water + 631ml water (808g total)
50g sugar
18g salt
42g unsalted butter at room temperature
1080 – 1200g APF
42g unsalted butter melted for brushing
[ Halved for 1 Loaf ]
3.5g yeast
88g water + 315g water (404g total)
25g sugar
9g salt
21g butter at room temp
540-600g APF
21g unsalted butter for brushing
That isn’t the correct weight for the yeast. It should be 14g or .50 oz
Good catch! You’re correct.
Aaron , you legend!
Thank you so much… I don’t have US cup measures, and wanted to halve the recipe… it was a conversion nightmare… Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for these conversions! I was just about to start doing the maths myself but you’ve saved me all that hard work.
Has anyone tried subbing milk or almond milk for the water to make it even softer? This bakes up soft for me but over the course of a few days gets dry and crumbly (though still soft, its not as soft as store bread)
Also, has anyone baked it with a pan of water in the oven?
Neither my husband or I are bakers by any stretch of the imagination so if we could do this, so can anybody! We were like two school children marvelling at how the ball of dough formed in the mixer and were on pins and needles waiting for each rising. We followed the instructions until the part where you divided the dough into two equal amounts. We both prefer the look of 3-bun bread so that’s what we did….dividing the dough, of course, into 6 equal amounts before placing in the greased pans. It was an absolute success! Thank you for sharing.
Great recipe, actually makes three loaves!
I have made this three times and my dough is always sticky. I follow the recipe exactly. What am I doing wrong?
It’s still delicious and bakes beautifully but dough is hard to work with.
Hi Sam, If it’s super sticky, you should add a bit more flour to get the correct consistency. Glad you’re enjoying the bread!!
can this recipe be made in a bread maker on the dough cycle using half the ingredients ?
Hi Selma, I’ve never used a bread maker, so I’m not 100% certain, but I would think it SHOULD work?
This is a GREAT recipe. I have used it three times already and the result is always the same – perfect loaves. Thank you for sharing it!
I don’t have a mixer with a bread hook. I would need to knead the dough. Any pointers?? I am a complete novice. Also, why is unsalted butter called for? My ex used to make bread and almost always “forgot” to add salt and his bread was SO boring!
In baking you generally use unsalted butter so you can control how much salt is in the recipe- there is less consistency when using salted butter as you really don’t know how much salt is in that particular stuck of butter
If you’ve never kneaded by hand, I would check out YouTube for a few videos – it’s helpful to see it done, but you basically fold the dough over itself, quarter-turn, do it again… then repeat over and over until you have a nice, smooth consistency. I’ve made and kneaded this by hand many times, so it can definitely be done! And yes, unsalted butter so you can control the salt. You use unsalted butter but then add a significant amount of salt to the bread. Enjoy!
This is now my go to bread recipe! These make large puffy delicious bread. I have a 4.5 quart Kitchenaide the doesn’t generally fit this, so I hand knead the last minute or so. I may try to divide this into 3 loaves as some have mentioned. We like the large rise it gets, I just slice thin with a serrated knife for toast & sandwiches. Perfect flavor perfect density everything.
If one doesn’t have loaf pans, can you just form the loaves and bake on a Silpat on a baking sheet? I want to bake this for making mini hot browns for Derby tomorrow, but the loaf pans I ordered won’t be here til late tonight. Or is it okay to let the dough rise longer, maybe knead twice?
That would work! I know others have baked it free-form without an issue.
Do both loaves of bread have a total of 253000 calories? That seems like a bit much.
I tried on a rainy day and we will see how it came out, so far it hasn’t been working so well. I followed the recipe to a T and have had to add a TON more flour than originally asked for because it was so sticky and not even forming into a dough. With the original 9-10 cups of flour my mixer also was easily overwhelmed by the quantity and I had to keep stopping it because the dough would be “crawling” up the dough hook and out of the bowl on to the top of the mixture. After adding so much flour to make it into an actual bread dough I now have MUCH more than 2 loaves worth and am frustrated that I had to utilize so much flour . We will see how it will bake up but not so happy with this recipe so far.
Maybe baking is not cut out for you…
Wow, Jay. What a completely rude and unhelpful response. I’ve been a successful baker for almost forty years and, just like Julie, I had to add a significant amount of flour to this recipe. Luckily, I had halved the recipe to make a single loaf. If I hadn’t, I can easily imagine having the same mess on my hands that Julie described!
My husband and I LOVE this recipe! This was my first time baking bread from scratch, without a box or bread machine. I immediately halved it and replaced most of the water for buttermilk (except for what bloomed the yeast).
A few other suggested alterations:
1. I used Active Dry yeast for this, because I didn’t have Instant yeast, which took a bit longer to “wake-up” without adding sugar.
2. I would suggest adding 1 tsp sugar to the yeast and water mixture at the start, as this encouraged much better yeast development when I made this recipe a second time.
3. I added an extra ½ tsp of salt, which boosted the flavor a bit more.
4. I lightly coated the dough and the bowl for the first rise, with a small amount of olive oil and then covered it tightly with plastic wrap and put in the closed oven for 1.5 hrs. This helped prevent the dough from developing a “skin”.
5. For the second rise, I coated the loaf pan with butter flavored Crisco, before pressing and rolling up the dough. I also covered this with plastic wrap after coating the dough with the melted butter
6. Additionally, I had to reduce my baking time by more than 5 minutes; I think my air-circulating oven baked the bread much faster than the time suggested.
Side Notes:
• I used a 12″/30cm loaf pan and was able to get about 28 slices using a manual bread slicing wheel (my old house has one built into a counter drawer – It’s pretty awesome for this purposes). This amount of bread was great fresh for the first 4-5 days and after, was great for making morning toast. This loaf lasted my husband & I about 7 days when stored in a bread bag (I re-used the bag from our last store bought loaf of bread).
• Halving the recipe was still a lot, so my next attempt will be to make ¼ of the original recipe and use a medium size loaf pan.
• Since I’m having some challenges getting all-purpose flour, I will try my next batch with semolina flour, as I have a lot of that available.
Overall, this is a great recipe, especially for a first time bread baker and gave me enough encouragement to try making more complex breads for Philadelphia-style treats, as I’m currently living as an ex-pat.
Thank you for sharing this recipe!
I made this with bread flour and it came out great. How big is a serving size? I can’t figure out the nutritional info.
Hi Jess, About a ½-inch slice of bread.
Have made bread before, but not a plain white bread. Tried your recipe for the first time a couple days ago and both loaves turned out wonderfully! Thank you so much for sharing this with all of us. I definitely plan to make it again; I’m also going to try it with some minced garlic and fresh rosemary thrown in and see how that works. #CARBSFOREVER
Hi
Would you please send me the recipe for My Favourite White Bread Recipe…looks so easy I would like to make it but want to make sure the measurements are correct for 1 loaf.
These are the measurements I used and it worked great in a 12″ loaf pan:
* 2 ¼ tsp Active Dry or Instant yeast (one – 7g packet)
* ⅓ c. (for yeast) Warm Water (110*f or 40*c)
* 1 c. + 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp Warm Water or Warm Buttermilk (110*f or 40*c)
* 1 tsp + 2 Tbsp Granulated Sugar (divided – 1 tsp for blooming yeast)
* 2 ½ tsp Salt
* 4 Tbsp (2 oz) Unsalted Butter, cubed, at room temperature
* 4 ½ c. + ¼ c. (for flouring surface) All-Purpose Flour #550
* 3 Tbsp (1.5 oz) Unsalted Butter (melted, for brushing)
I substituted Buttermilk in place of second amount of 1 c. + 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp Warm Water; 1 to 1.
Hope these measurements work out for you as well as they did for me. :)
Thanks for posting the measurement for 1 loaf! I used this but i think the butter is the full amount intended for 2loaves? Hope my loaf still comes out ok
This is the BEST recipe..and easiest I have found. After we finished off the 1st loaf (sent the 2nd loaf home with our daughter) my husband asked me to make another loaf.. this hasn’t happened before! The 2nd time I started out by added 3 cups of whole wheat flour. After that I added all purpose a cup at a time. That time I only used 7 to 7.5 cups of total flour. Don’t know if it was the wheat flour or the weather that made a difference. The bread was DELICIOUS!!!! I don’t think I will be buying store bought bread ever again!!!
Dude, this is the second of your bread recipes that I’ve made in a week (cause everyone is baking in quarantine) and it’s amazing! I’ll be using all your others from now on. No ones recipes seem to come together or have such clever instructions as you do so thank you!
You’re welcome, so glad you’re enjoying the bread! Happy Baking!
Hi! I’m going to try this recipe tomorrow, do you know how much active dry yeast I should use for this recipe? And I would just proof it in a 3/4 cup of warm water?
Hi Kelly, Yes, same amount and same process, the rising will just take a bit longer. Enjoy!
Awesome recipe! Making it again now for the second day in a row!
Thank you!
Can anyone help me please? I’m a total novice bread maker but this recipe looks the best I’ve found. However, I’ve only been able to get hold of fresh yeast. How would I change this up to work in the recipe? Many thanks.
Julie I had the same experience as you. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that baking isn’t for you… like any skill, it takes practice, trial and error before finding success. And in this case, learning from each other’s experience. For me, it didn’t sit well that the amount of flour needed wasn’t exact. So when my VERY sticky dough ball started crawling up the dough hook and loose flour still sitting at the bottom of the bowl, and even more still left to pour in, I decided to just remove the bowl from the mixer, added in a bit more flour to the dough (totaling like 8 C.) and kneaded it with my hands in the bowl until all the flour was sticking to the dough ball. Then I continued to knead by hand on the lightly floured countertop surface until it was nice and tacky but not sticky. Mine dough is in it’s first rise so we’ll see how it turns out. I hope you have great luck! And don’t give up!
This was exactly my experience and I ended up kneading the bread on the counter top instead. Probably only needed to use about 7.5 cups of the flour. I used half of the dough in a 9 inch tin and made the rest into rolls. It all turned out great!
It was my experience, too, and I thought it was just me. Following the recipe to the letter got me 2 loaves from an 8-inch loaf pan and an additional loaf for a 9 inch loaf pan (all I have on hand). I’ve used less flour since, but more when it’s rainy (and less water).
I made this bread today…..amazing. I have always wanted to try to make bread. It made 2 beautiful loaves that are currently being devoured by everyone in the house. Easy recipe. Dont think i will be buying bread anymore. This is by far better than store bought
How does the yeast/water situation work if you are halving the recipe? Do you half both amounts of water? Also, how would using bread flour affect the outcome? I have both but would rather save my all-purpose flour for other things. Thanks!
Hi Morgan, Yes, you should halve everything. Bread flour will give you a bit of a “chewier” texture; many have used it and loved it!
Marvelous, this time I added bread conditioner, which made the dough easier to knead n drier. I also added sunflower seeds N poppy seeds. N the final result is spectacular 😋😋
What is a bread conditioner?
Bread conditioner or bread improver improves the kneading n fermentation of dough n provides excellent volume, texture, n color while also extending freshness. Text from the box. Think u can get it from bakery supplies shops.
I halved the recipe (I only have 1 loaf tin and no room to freeze a second loaf anyway).
The bread is beautiful, thanks for a great recipe and instructions.
I must note though that I may not have rolled the dough tightly enough as it separated slightly when cutting…and 200°c fan oven may be too hot, as it almost burned the top of the loaf.
When I try it again (and I will), will it cook okay at 180°c fan oven, or should I just do 200°c conventional oven?
thanks again.
The bread came out dense Not sure if this is correct. Not a fluffy white bread I wanted. Maybe user error. Doesn’t look like the picture.
I love the recipe and it was a hit but I was wondering if I could use the dough to make cinnamon bread.
Yes! I add sugar and cinnamon when it is spread out in the 9×12 and then roll and allow for second rise- it’s wonderful!
Yes, absolutely! :)
Best bread recipe I have made yet! Did find that I made 2 x 2lb loaves and half a dozen rolls too from quantity in recipe. The toast from this bread is to die for!
I just read your question and decided to make 1 of the loaves a cinnamon swirl. They are doing the second rise now and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
wow, this is amazing, definitely using again. it was way better than the supermarket bread.
My kids have informed me, (and bruised my ego) that this was THE BEST THING EVER!!! Thank you for giving such a clear, simple recipe. Already a family favourite xx
What?! A bread recipe that doesn’t require bread flour (which I can’t find in this coronalife) or kneading?? Sounds to good to be true… will report back this afternoon…
Delicious! This dough got massive though… next time I might make half to both loaves bc we like small sandwich bread ;)
Wow,, So easy, So good! I now make this every week. No more store bread full of chemicals. A loaf of bread bought in a store can last weeks it is full of preservatives.
Probably a dumb question but I don’t bake with yeast much – if I use active dry yeast, and I add the 1/4 cup of warm water that the package instructions call for, do I also add the 3/4 cup of water to the yeast that the recipe calls for? Just don’t want to add too much water!
No, just proof the yeast the way the recipe states. It’ll work fine. If you add add the additional 1/4 cup water, your dough will be too wet.
Definitely the best recipe for white bread and I’ve baked a few loaves in my life time but still this is my favorite since I discovered it. Even got my daughter hooked on it and she bakes it now as well, as she has nothing much else to do in quarantine. Thanks a lot!
Hi
I too love making bread and this recipe looks fabulous. I really would like to try it but I work in grammes not cups.
Please could you give a Continental version using grammes and mls.
Many thanks
I halved the recipe to make one 2lb loaf, and I used a total of 600g of flour, 7g of yeast, 370ml of water – split into 80ml and 290ml – and 20g of butter. I attempt bread about once every two years, and am invariably disappointed, but was so pleased with the result. I followed the recipe to the letter and couldn’t believe at each stage just how much it looked like it should! Even after leaving to cool for 20 minutes before deciding it wasn’t cooked through, and putting back in the oven, I had edible bread!
The bread was the best white bread that I have made. No air pockets, consistent rise, nice size and delicious.
Thank you for the recipe.. … The bread came out just perfect…. the first time I tried my hands at this .
The first time I’m leaving a comment as well …so many firsts !
My family just loved this one !
I made this 2 weeks ago. Made the recipe axactly as written. It made two 5″ X 9″ loaves that were beautiful, delicious and had a great texture. They held up well for sandwiches, as toast and to soak up gravy with a chiken dinner. I froze one and it was just as good when thawed. Thanks for sharing.
Amazing!! I’ve been making bread for a while but mostly artisan type breads. Although my husband likes them a lot, he’s been wanting a classic pb and j on white bread. This bread does the trick!! He has been raving about it and even sent pics to his friends. It’s so easy and the second load goes on the freezer for the next week. I will definitely be keeping this recipe. Thank you so much!! I’m going to try using it for hamburger buns today. We shall see, but I have a good feeling about it 🙂
I made a half recipe, so one loaf. I’ve made sourdough bread, Irish Soda bread, and quick breads, but never a sandwich loaf. This came together beautifully, though it took longer on the dough hook and in the oven. The result is very pillowy and the spiral totally disappeared into the bread. Great recipe … I’ll be making it again.
I’ve just made this but I’ve yet to try it, but if it tastes as good as it smells I will be over the moon! The loaves have come up amazing! Such a great recipe! Thank you :)
This was the best white bread I’ve ever made! The first loaf was gone in 10 minutes once it was cool! I only ended up needing 8 cups of sifted flour to get the desired consistency of dough. I will be making this every other day, no need to ever try another recipe!!!
Can you bake this freely on a baking sheet, instead of using a loaf tin?! Say if I knead it into an oval shape. Thanks!
Hi Josh, I never have, but I believe others have commented below that they have and it has worked.
I made buns on a cookie sheet using this recipe turned out amazing
Omg fantastic…. perfect bread recipe thanks!!’ Yummy!
This recipe is amazing!!! It looks exactly like the one in the video!!! I posted pictures on instagram and tagged you… THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
Omg the best bread ever. I’ve made tons of bread but this is the best I’ve ever made. Thanks so much. I will never have to try another recipe cuz this is awesome.
Bread looks super yummy and tastes great. BUT, I have huge bubbles on the top. What did I do wrong?
This is a brilliant recipe. I have been bookmarking it for weeks, trying to look for other recipes which don’t need butter. But this yields a soft and well risen loaf. I halved the recipe for my first try as I didn’t want to waste it if I failed in this Covid season. This is it I think! The bread recipe for our home as it only uses plain flour! A big thank you from Borneo!
By the way, has anyone tried using olive oil or canola oil instead of butter for this recipe? What is the difference in texture if so?
I am a bit confused about the direction to use the lowest rack in the oven. Is this true irrespective of where the heating element is in the oven? Also, for dark pans, does this direction or baking temperature change?
Totally blew my Keto diet today. This bread is incredible. It could be because I haven’t had bread in 8 months. I made it for my son-his store sandwich bread got moldy and due to coronavirus, didnt want to send him to the store. Im so glad I made it, my son loved it. I even successfully baked it in my new convection toaster oven at 350°. I see someone did a keto version with almond & coconut flour….I’ll be doing that tomorrow so I dont eat my son’s loaf!
I tried it on the lowest position of the oven and it made the bottom of the bread darker than I would like. Next time I make this I’m going to put it one rack up. I think that will be perfect. So put it up one more than the very bottom setting and it should be perfect.
Yes you need it on the lowest rack so the top doesn’t burn.
If you are using a dark pan, always lower the oven temperature 25 degrees to compensate. Enjoy!
Superb recipe. Only one I use now for wheat flour based bread. (I make keto bread with almond and coconut flours for myself). The dough for this bread is very easy to handle, and it rises well (I do add a couple tablespoons of wheat gluten; I think it helps a little). It makes a beautiful loaf with a nice crumb, perfect for sandwiches.
I just made this bread, and oh my! I love it!!! I’ve been making bread for 7 weeks for 6 people, covid stay at home baking. this is the first time the bread not only looks and tastes the same as store bought, but it’s better. So glad for fresh fluffy sandwiches. One less stressor of life. Thank you!!!
This recipe is legit!!! I used regular yeast, which somehow proofed in the same amount of time as instant, and the bread turned out soft, soft, soft- perfect for my little’s sandwiches for the next 2 weeks. I even accidentally turned off my timer for the second rise, ended up with “mushroom cloud” loaves, and STILL didn’t have swiss cheese inside! Baking miracle!
(Can you tell I’m excited about this recipe?)
I waited for the loaves to cool completely, sliced and stored one loaf for this week and froze the other (sliced, double-wrapped in plastic, then foil) for next week.
Thank you!
I really wish in STEP ONE they tell you that you may not need all of the flour! After it tells you to combine, in step two it says you might not need all of the flour. 😑 I added the full amount it called for in step one like the writer said.,, I had to add so much water because the dough was literally crumbles and so dry. Might be a good recipe, but I wouldn’t know since the writer failed to tell me at the correct time I might not need all of the flour…. I now wasted my time and ingredients! PLEASE FIX.
SORRY- I misread the instructions!!
Perhaps remove this comment, or change the stars since you misread the instructions?
HAS anyone tried making this as jalepeno cheese bread? Or cinnamon raisin? JUst wondering best way to do this….
Yes!!! I am on my 4th batch of this bread, rolled with butter, cinnamon sugar and raisins. It is stupid good!!
I have been trying to bake a good white bread for sandwiches and such. It was really annoying me that something as simple as bread (which we have been making for hundreds of years btw) but I could just not get that silky, chewy, delicious bread. It ended up being grainy, crumbly and gross… I was not going to give up, I was going to find a good recipe and I found this one. I did substitute the AP flour with 8 1/2 cups bread flour but it came out absolutely amazing! Very chewy and fluffy exactly like it was store bought.
I will say that I almost destroyed my mixer by substituting the flour with bread flour. Because of the gluten, I ended up having to do the last bit of kneading myself or I would be looking for a new mixer. Regardless, it turned out perfect, thanks for the recipe!
Awesome recipe! I live in India and the store bought loaf bread here is terrible- crumbly, fluffy and pumped full of sugar.
This bread is our family favorite. I tried a few other recipes but the loaves came out small. These loaves are nice, big and tall, soft and firm.
As I am typing this, it is my 3rd time making it. First time I only needed 8.5 cups of flour. 2nd time, I added 1/3 cup of milk powder for a softer bread. My husband preferred it!
Though the bread comes out great, Im struggling with the folding technique. My bread always splits on the sides…im hoping 3rd time is a charm!
I tried a different folding technique and I’ve put a bit of water in the oven. Fingets crossed.
*question to author:
Im wondering how to get the loaves to hold a topping like sesame seeds though. The 2nd time I made this recipe, the sesame seeds fell of when the bread was baked…
Fingers crossed!
You could try spraying a fine mist of water on the loaf and add your seeds or a bit of egg white wash on the loaves before baking. That should get them to hold on.
I almost never leave reviews but I have to this time. This is hands down the best bread I have ever made. I live at relatively high altitude (about 7,000ft) but still had amazing succsss by just watching the texture and using just shy of 9c of flour and watching the rise closely (about 30 min on first rise and 20-25 min on the second rise) to avoid over proofing. The crumb is perfect and the buttery crust is to die for. Thanks for sharing this amazing recipe.
Brilliant recipe! I baked bread for the very first time following this recipe and it turned out like a dream! Thank you very much 😁😁
I made this bread during the Coronavirus . Needed a challenge. How easy. Since I had such success , I made another batch. Perfect again, Found yeast by luck and am ready to try again. My loaves were picture perfect.
I’ve been making bread for 50 years now; usually whole wheat because I have a ton of wheat and a wheat grinder. But the white bread recipe i have used was not to great. So i tried your recipe and it is marvelous my grandsons ask for it regularly. Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Brown-Eyed Baker,
As a DIYer (extensive car repairs, large building projects gardening and of course cooking/ baking), I use the internet extensively for research and how-to. However, I’ve only posted a couple of replies in my life. This recipe deserves the third. So easy and so good. My wife, who has a very discriminating taste for bread, loves it too. It has become the standard. Thank you for sharing with us. BTW, I love your writing style, website and easy to follow directions. Take care and keep sharing.
I was looking for a bread recipe that was easy enough and more “store-like” than bread-maker bread. After reading the reviews I had to try it. In case it didn’t turn out, I halved the recipe and made one loaf. It turned out PERFECTLY! It looks just like the photos. I only had an 8.5″ pan and my bread turned out a bit too big for it but this wasn’t an issue for me. Here is the measurements for one loaf that I used:
2 1/4 tsp bread maker yeast (this is all I had on hand and I read online that it’s the same as Instant, just packaged differently)
3/8 c + 1 1/3 c warm water divided
1/8 c granulated sugar
1/2 tbsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, cubed room temp
4 1/2-5 c all-purpose flour (I used bread flour)
1/2 tbsp unsalted butter melted for brushing
It cooked for only 30 minutes and the internal temp read 195F when I pulled it out of the oven.
Thanks for the amazing recipe!
It is not hyperbole to rate this bread recipe as “the best and easiest bread I’ve ever made.” I’ve been successful with french bread, with sourdough bread, etc., but I was not successful in making a perfect sandwich loaf until I used this recipe. It slices nicely and it has a wonderful texture. Thank you so much for making me look good as I bring out a huge platter of sandwiches for the grandsons, made with your bread recipe of course!
Love this recipe – I’ve been making the halved recipe over and over for the last few weeks, and no matter how I modify (use varying alternatives to butter and sugar, half whole wheat flour, depending on my mood) it always works out. I use my breadmaker for steps 1 to 3, and it takes little to no time. Kinda need to watch and modify the flour /water ratio depending on the type of flour and humidity of the day, but otherwise super easy. I also often skip the butter on the crust, but I suspect that would make it that much better.
Seems simple enough, but seriously, not a better recipe out there for basic white bread.
I have baked and cooked for my family a lot over the years and I enjoy making bread but I don’t very often because I have two gluten intolerant people in the house. However, we have found over the last year that if we use OO flour from Italy, then my wife can eat bread with no ill effects. We now believe that her allergy is to the chemicals used in American wheat that they don’t use in Italy. (We ordered the flour months ago well before the COVID issues in Italy and here.). Since COVID has us home bound, I have started making bread again. I have been searching for a white Sandwich bread recipe for a couple of weeks. I hit the jackpot with this recipe. I made it exactly as the recipe says except substituting Earth Balance soy free butter for real butter in both the recipe and to brush on the loaves. Just as the author states, the loaves rise up very nicely making for a tight crumb under a beautiful golden brown crust. It slices nicely and it can be thin sliced to your desire. The bread is flavorful and makes a perfect companion for sandwiches or toast. It is delicious! The recipe makes two huge loaves perfect right out of the oven. I never write reviews…I wrote one for this recipe!
I make most of my bread because I am on a low sodium diet due to congestive heart failure. I want a good sandwich bread recipe and will try this with salt substitutes. But this recipe makes a bread that is higher in sodium than most grocery store brands. The American Heart Association guidelines of 1500-2000 mg of sodium per day. Two slices of this makes a while meals worth of sodium.
I made it and accidentally omitted the salt entirely. As you can imagine, it rose quickly and rather high. But was still delicious. Try it without the salt.
I used half the salt and only 2 TBS of sugar, and it tasted awesome. :)
Loved this recipe, thanks so much. Big recipe though. Got really two huuuge loaves. This one is a keeper.
Magnificent! An ODE to all grandma’s out there… as a serious baker and lover of all this baked & buttered – blame the French Canadian in me – this recipe is simply a MUST try for anyone looking to trying their hands at making beautiful loaves at home. Good work!
This bread is amazing. Will never buy bread again! So easy. ..almost impossible to screw it up.
Let me start by saying I cook and bake all the time, but making bread has always scared me. I decided to try my hand at it while I’m furloughed and OH MY GOODNESS Y’ALL!!!! It is so good!! I don’t know why I’ve waited this long to make bread. It was so easy and definitely worth the effort. It’s definitely not helping the fact that I need to lose a couple pounds to fit in my wedding dress in 8 days, but oh well. 🤷🏻♀️
So you said you used a 9’ bread pan for this recipe and linked your favorite ones…but the are no 9 inch options, it’s either 8.5 inch or 10 inch. So…which one do you suggest?
If you want a taller loaf with a poofy top use the 8.5. If you want a more uniform loaf with a smaller crown, use the 10″.
Thank you so much for this recipe! I have been struggling with making bread, but this turned out so well, they raised very well. Very pleased!
Absolutely delicious and thank you!
Quickie question – both loaves smelled and tasted a tiny bit yeasty, and my loaves looked more dense than your pictures.
Any idea what i did wrong? I followed the recipe, but let the first dough rise at 45 minutes and the second rise for 30. Should they have risen more?
Thanks for your guidance in advance.
Did you let them rise a 3rd time in the pan before baking? I made that mistake the first time and my results were like yours. The second time I let the loaves rise in the pan for another 45 minutes before baking and they came out perfect.
I REALLY LOVED THE RECIPE. It came much better than I expected considering it was just my second time baking bread from scratch. The first time I had used a different recipe and it came out rather disappointing, to be honest. Even as I halved the recipe, I still got two loafs of bread, albeit smaller. Thanks for sharing this recipe. Really enjoyed it.
Yes I made it it was a hit ,was wondering if you could use sour milk in place of some if the water
I’m a new bread baker and these turned out great! I used half bread flour and half AP. After proofing and splitting into two loaves, I kept one ball of dough in the fridge for a few days. When I pulled it out, it took much longer to puff up again but it turned out even more beautiful than the first loaf.
Absolutely lovely bread. You weren’t lying about them being huge though 🤣 with my bread tins I think I could easily have had 3/4 loves out of it 🤣 I’ll half the recipe next time to make two loaves. I just wish I could share a picture as it’s hilarious 😂
Serious thanks, I’m not a baker but your directions were perfect. My bread looked almost identical to yours in the photos. I don’t see a reason to try other recipes, the family loved it. Will def make this again.
Hi, I had a question, if I knead the dough by hand, is there a test to see when it’s been kneaded enough similar to the one for the stand mixer?
Google “windowpane test” for dough. You’ll find images and videos about how
to easily test your bread dough this way.
Has anyone halfed the recipe with sucess? Can I get the measurements if you have please :-)
2.5 tsp yeast
1.5 cups warm water(divided)
1/8th cup granulated sugar
1.5 tbsp. Salt
1.5 tbsp butter, cubed, at room temperature
2 cups of bread flour and 1 cup of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter(melted, 1 tbsp brushed Pre-bake and 1 tbsp brushed on post bake)
Hi there, any reason for the switch to bread flour? That’s what I have, but I was nervous to use that instead of the AP flour in the recipe. I also notice this isn’t “halving” the recipe–can you explain? You seem to know what you’re doing!
Oh my gosh, i think this really is the best homemade white bread ever! Super light, fluffy, and tall loaves! We broke down and ate half a loaf straight out of the oven with butter. So good!
Wow! Seriously delicious bread. Holy huge loaves! 😳 I only have 8.5″×4.5″ pans. One is pyrex, the other is Polish pottery. Both baked beautiful golden loafs of bread. Followed recipe exactly – I only have active dry yeast, so I proofed it prior to adding remaining ingredients. We live under 100 feet above sea level on Oahu. Though it’s dry right now, I used the full 10 cups of flour to make the bread in my Kitchenaid 5.0 Pro Series mixer. (This amount of flour was pushing the limits. Next time I may turn it out and knead by hand once the dough comes together so as to not burn out my motor. For my size pans and the amount of dough, I’ll make 3 loaves next time. I think I’m going to double the yeast and try freezing the loaves before the 1st rise to save some time. That will last our family of 3 two weeks… unless we go sandwich crazy – which is possible as this bread is stupid good! These large loaves registered at 195 degrees at 35 min bake time, so I’ll have to check at maybe 25 minutes with the smaller sized loads. My husband has decided we’re never buying bread again. 🤣 Thank you Brown Eyed Girl for a simply and simply delicious bread recipe.
I have been trying for years to find this recipe! Delicious and perfect soft texture. I did add one potato cooked and mashed and used the cooking water to dissolve the yeast in. I also used 2 parts of all purpose flour to 1 part bread flour, for a better rise. But if I use all bread flour , all that gluten is too much for me.
Great and delicius!!!
Is this recepi eggless?
Do you see any eggs in the list of ingredients??? DUH!
This is now my favorite white bread recipe as well. So easy even by hand.
I made this recipe today and the bread was absolutely amazing!!! This was my second time baking bread and my first attempt wasn’t good 😂 I made two Huge loaves with the Full recipe and the bread was soft and fluffy. My partner and kids loved it! I’ll be making this regularly during lockdown, thank you for sharing ❤️☺️
Ingredient list says 9 to 10 cups while in process.. You used only 5 cups…a bit confusing. Could you please guide??
I made this with my 3yo and it was a success. Husband said it couldn’t have been any better!
There were so many adds on this webpage it’s practically impossible to make it. Dodging pop up after pop up and refreshing. The bread probably tastes great but I’ll never know.
Use an adblocker such as Adblock plus. You’ll see no ads.
Do you have the recipe in grams?
My husband LOVED LOVED LOVED this bread. Best tasting bread I have ever made and it was very easy to make. My new fav recipe and I will be making it weekly.
I just made this and I love it. It’s better than I was even hoping for. My Mom said it’s the best bread she ever tasted. It made two HUGE loaves. I may try to make 3 loaves out of it next time. Thank you for sharing this. This is the bread recipe I will use from now on. Thank you!
Just made this and it is AMAZING! Other than cutting the recipe in half, I made no changes and I am so impressed. This is definitely our new white bread recipe. Too easy! Thanks for sharing!
Does this mean I put the loaf in. While the oven is preheating?
Very nice bread – made the 1/2 batch for a single loaf to try it out. Everyone including the kids loved it. next time plan to make the full recipe for the double. Considering the time commitment it makes more sense to make 2 at a time. We used it to celebrate Maundy Thursday during quarantine. Thanks for the yummy recipe.
Thank you for sharing. Doubled this and made four large beautiful loaves. Kids and husband loved it. Will use this recipe from now on. Couldn’t be any easier. Thank you again.
This is the best bread that l have ever made. This is now my go to bread from now on. It was high, fluffy and tasted wonderful. My husband couldn’t believe how good it was. And l have to say that my house smelled so good it was as if you walked into a bakery. Many , many thanks for posting this recipe this is a keeper.
I made this bread last week and got 3 absolutely amazing loaves of bread. I only had to use about 7 1/2ish cups of flour. Today it took over 10 cups. I realized that today is horrifically humid with thunderstorms heading our way…I guess that is the difference? Anyway, it’s on the first rising, so we shall see.
I used bread flour and followed the half measurements in the comments to a t. I used 4.5 cups of flour and had to add 3 tbsp of water to get to the right consistency. This bread is gorgeous!! Super tall and fluffy.
I tried your favorite white bread recipe, it’s OK, but nothing to rite home about, was looking for a SOFT white bread recipe but this wasn’t it, I’ll just need to keep looking, I think it calls for way too much flour
Hey Larry, I’m having the same problem as you can see further down the thread. I’ve tried twice now and I must be doing something wrong but can’t figure out what it is. Mine is nowhere near soft and fluffy but is dense and airy. I must be doing something wrong because other people are reporting success and the pictured bread looks almost exactly like store bought white bread. I would like to try a third time but am unsure as what to do that would make a difference without deviating from the recipe as written.
What brand of flour are you using? I’ve noticed a difference between store brand and generic when it comes to softness of loaves. Also how old is your flour? It can lose gluten over time.
Do you have an equally great recipe for whole wheat bread? The white bread is rising beautifully right now! But we’d love to try a whole wheat version too if you have it.
I would love to have this recipe for whole wheat flour too please!
really easy and beautiful rise
Why does my bread not fluffy ?how long do you knead bread? What happens if you over knead dough?
Hi Aileen, same problem here. If you figure it out, please let me (us) know what worked. I used our KitchenAid mixer and the recipe states to knead for 7 to 10 minutes. I’m unsure as to what happens if you UNDER KNEAD or OVER KNEAD the dough. My baking skills are suspect. Lol. If you see my thread further down you will see that a slice of my bread with approximately the same thickness was WAY heavier than a slice of store bought white bread. I’m flummoxed.
This is a very forgiving recipe! I used 50/50 bread and so flour and it came out great! I didn’t need the full amount of flour as suggested, so be sure to pay attention to the consistency as you add. One suggestion I see a lot is to add the initial amount in step 1, but then add 1/2 cup at a time until it hits the desired consistency. This will be my go to recipe during this crisis!
This was the best recipe ever!! This is going to be the ‘it’ recipe from now on. Thank u so much. Have been looking for a recipe for years. Well done !
Family loved it! Will definitely make this again.
Easy, delicious. My kids love it 2 loaves gone in one day.
Made it loved it.
Tried it today, came out good and tasted very nice. One question – the outer layer turned out a bit hard. Any idea why ?
So we made this recipe for the first time a few days ago. My daughters and I have now made 4 batches (8 loaves) just this week. The first batch turned out with a crispy crust. The inside was soft and fluffy but was not good sandwich bread at all because the crust was too hard and too thick. We experimented with the cooking techniques (not the recipe) and this is what we found out. We are very happy with this recipe with the few techniques I will mention below. Our neighbors have raved about it as well and are now asking for the recipe (even the ones that got the trial batches).
375 was the best temperature for us. It cooked too fast at 400. I had 3 thermometers confirm the true oven temp. Best Cook time was 25 minutes.
Bottom rack on oven was great place. Keep it there.
Don’t use foil to cover the top of the loaf — not even for a partial bake time.
Don’t baste the top of the bread right before you bake it.
The trick for soft crust for us was: Immediately when the bread is done (25 min at 375), then remove it from the pan and place the bread upright on a cooling rack. Then spread a damp tea towel on the top and sides of each of the cooked loaves of bread. For some reason this softened the crust. After 3-5 ish minutes remove the damp towel and immediately brush with lots of butter that will soak into the crust and keep the crust soft. Once we left the towel on for 10 minutes and that was too long. The crust was too soft then.
Hope this helps! Happy experimenting.
FYI’s
*We used the Calphalon Nonstick Bakeware, Loaf Pan, 5-inch by 10-inch baking pans.
* We averaged 9.25 cups of flour per batch
* We took the butter wrapper and lightly coated the bottom of the pans with what was left of the wrapper
When rolling out the dough (Before shaping it)
*We did not use a flouring surface. We sprayed the countertop with Pam cooking spray and rolled it out with that.
*Our inside humidity was hovering between 45-50% while we were baking and our altitude is 5,500 ft
Excellent! I’m going to try these steps next time. It addresses the same issues I’m having.
I am a terrible baker! I made bread two days ago, using a different recipe. It took hours, was dense, and had a hard crust. Horrible! I just tried this recipe with all of these changes from Joyblu and it turned out perfect! It is soft, with a nice soft crust, has small airy bubbles, and tastes delicious! I don’t usually make modifications to a recipe the first time I’m glad I did. Thank you for doing the trial and error work to perfect this recipe!
I really want to make this loaf, but I don’t have a mixer can I use my hands instead?
Yes, I made this yesterday with no mixer and it turned out great. I used a spatula first in the bowl to mix while slowly adding some of the flour. When it started to take form, I turned it over onto a floured cutting board and hand kneaded for about 10 minutes, while slowly incorporating the remaining flour. Once the dough took shape, I let it sit for about 5 minutes and then I moved it back to the (now cleaned) bowl.
I also let it rise at the max amounts with extra, but that’s because I used active dry yeast and not instant.
I’m going to be using active dry yeast too. The packaging says it doesn’t need to be activated in water that it can be added directly to the Flour mixture. Do you know anything about this?
Have you ever made this without the sugar? Do you have to sub with something else?
What my bread has in common with Jimmy Hoffa…
They are both mysteries as to what exactly happened. Lol. I have made two loaves of bread on two different occasions with pretty much the same results. Dense bread (similar to what I would expect from my bread machine) and not as tall as the pictured, more squat than tall, if you will. Like any great mystery, I’m trying to solve where I’m going off track. I know I HAVE to be doing something wrong as the original recipe photos probably do not lie and so many people are reporting outstanding results following the recipe.
I did, on both occasions, use the “half recipe” and followed the instructions to the best of my abilities. I used Jess’s calculations in the thread below and tried to follow step by step. For some reasons, it drives me insane when I see people leave a comment on a FREE online recipe website and then substitute or deviate from the instructions. When I see things like “I hate this meatloaf recipe, I was out of ketchup so I used clam juice, instead of bread crumbs I threw in some crushed pretzels and without any ground beef in the house, I used sardines……this recipe SUCKS.”
I am going to continue to wrack my little brain to try and figure out what’s going wrong here. It would be great to have it like it is pictured……little tiny holes and opposed to larger or more “airy” holes. Bread that it taller than it is wide. I am wondering if the fact that I am using “active dry yeast” from a brand new Red Star bulk bag has anything to due with my problem. On my first attempt, I added the yeast to 110 degree water and let it sit for 5 minutes…..on the second attempt, I used 110 degree water to the yeast and let it sit for 15 minutes before adding the additional ingredients that were measured precisely.
I broke out my digital scale and weighed a slice of normal sunbeam bread and it was 1 1/8 ounce….my slice which is almost the exact same thickness was 1 7/8 ounce. The bread TASTES wonderful….it’s just short, airy and dense. If I were to use it to make a turkey sandwich, it would probably be too much bread for the wife.
I forgot to mention that I let the bread sit a little longer in the bowl and in the loaf pan on the second attempt. It did appear to perhaps double in size in the bowl and it did rise higher in the loaf pan but not super high. It appeared that when it was BAKING, it didn’t rise much higher if any at all. I guess what is strangest of all to me is that, regardless of the height, the holes to so much bigger and not tiny and tight like the picture.
Perhaps…..just like Jimmy Hoffa, we’ll never know the answer. My wife is saying “just give up…it’s edible”. I’m like “No way, woman….I can find the answer to this and when I solve this baby, I”m out the the door to search for Jimmy”.
Did you use all-purpose flour or bread flour? I made two attempts at this with AP flour, both rose well but sunk before they could make it into the oven. AP flour doesn’t have the same protein content as bread flour so it doesn’t form as strong of gluten strands and can become more dense/prone to sinking. I ran to the store and grabbed a bag of vital wheat gluten and followed a bread flour substitution recipe- 1/2 TBSP vital wheat gluten per 1 cup (minus 1/2 TBSP) ap flour and it worked like a charm. Also, if you are kneading by hand you may need to add another few minutes to the time, since it is less consistent and even than a machine. If your house is a bit chilly, preheat your oven to the lowest temp it can be set to (~150 F worked for me)/leave the door open for a few moments if too warm, and the dough will proof more evenly and quickly in there.
Hi Ally. I did follow the directions pretty much to the letter, so it was indeed all-purpose flour on both occasions. I would indeed try bread flour if I had any on hand, but unfortunately I do not. However, I do have 25 pounds of all-purpose so I guess I’m going to have to try and make it work somehow. Lol.
I did not have the rise and sink problem as it appeared that, at least on the second attempt, when I let the active dry yeast sit for 15 minutes initially as opposed to 5 minutes, the dough did rise higher both in the bowl and in the pan. However it was not as high as pictured especially vs width. I did indeed use a KitchenAid mixer to knead the dough for 10 minutes as opposed to by hand. The temperature in the house is always at 72 degrees.
I do want to thank you IMMENSELY for taking the time to try and help me out. I am one of those people who appreciate the effort taken to offer up free advice and suggestions. I do think I MIGHT have stumbled onto at least part of the problem. I did indeed use a 9 inch loaf pan as instructed, however upon looking closely at Michelle’s (the author) pan recommendations….it appears the 1 pound pan she uses from Williams Sonoma is actually 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 which MIGHT explain, at least in part, why the loaf is higher than mine which is 9 x 5. I know a half inch isn’t much….but it could explain at least some difference.
Like I stated before, the taste is wonderful….and hopefully I can try an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 pan to see if it makes much difference. If it does, the last problem to solve is why my loaves are still dense and airy as opposed to light with very tiny air holes.
Thank you again, Ally for your help. At least I have some leads to work on. Then I’m off to find Jimmy. I hear on good authority that he might be flipping burgers at a roadside diner in Toledo. He should be about 106 years old about now so he should be easy to spot. Cheers!
Just curious…could you be measuring your flour a little on the full side? You can actually over measure flour by approx. 30%. Every cup should be about 140 grams. Or not scooped out of the bag with the measuring cup, but placed in the measuring cup with a spoon and leveled off with the back of a knife.
This might help… https://www.reddit.com/r/Sourdough/comments/70zg5q/what_happens_if_you_overproof_or_underproof_how/
That didn’t work! I was trying to link to an article called ‘What Happens if You Overproof or Underproof?’ Might be helpful to look into that question.
I would try leaving it longer the second proof. I had to prove mine for an hour and a half to get the same height on my bread. I was using the same size pans as what you are.I have never had my bread have the same texture as store-bought bread if you look at their ingredients they have a ton more so unless you added all that I don’t think you’re ever going to get that same texture. I could be wrong LOL I thought this was a great recipe and really enjoyed the bread. Hope you found success :-)
I made the bread today. It turned out to be awesome…
Made this bread today . came out great. Thanks for a great recipe. I quartered the recipe. Made small loaf in small loaf tin.
This recipe is wonderful. The bread looks exactly like the pictures. The texture is beautiful I’ve searched for years to find a great bread recipe and now I’ve found it. Thank you!
First try in many years (and several failures), and it turned out so well, I gave one loaf to friends. Thanks for a great recipe!
Yipeeeee, first time bread bake. Came out very well.
Has anyone tried subbing gf flour? One of my loved ones is highly sensitive n misses pb&j on white bread. I’d like to surprise them but I’m not great with yeast recipes to begin with and gf flour is expensive. Anyone who knows firsthand about how to pull this off – your tips would be so appreciated❣️
Love this recipe!! The bread was amazing – two loaves gone in 3 days!! Oops.
Have you ever used this dough to make rolls (perhaps by allowing the second rise in a muffin pan)? I was going to give it a shot but I don’t want to ruin an batch of it’s not a good idea.
First attempt at bread making and it turned out perfect! Halved the recipe for 1 loaf. Thanks for a great recipe!
Just made this first time ever and it is DELICIOUS!
Loved this recipe! It makes fabulous bread.
For everyone asking for the half recipe, the math isn’t too bad, especially with all the online calculators out there.
But here you go!
U.S.
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
3/8 cup + 1 1/3 cups water, divided
1/8 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1.5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed at room temperature
4.5 – 5 cups all purpose flour
1.5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted for brushing
Metric
7 g instant yeast
93.75 ml + 320 ml water, divided
25 g granulated sugar
8.5 g salt
21 g unsalted butter, cubed at room temperature
565 g all purpose flour
21 g unsalted butter, melted for brushing
Omg thank you! x
Thanks Jess,
The metric measures are very helpful. I was initially confused when the ingredient list said 9-10 cups of flour, yet the recipe noted 5 cups…?
I’m using instant yeast, should I still add this to the water beforehand? Ever other recipe would have the dry yeast added to other dry ingredients and the water is added afterwards. All attempts at breadmaking has failed so far but with lock down with Coronavirus, I am determined to master this.
Thanks in advance.
Wonderful and awsome! 2 loaves came out wonderful and taste fabulous 🤗
Tried for the first time today and it came out perfect. Crusty on the outside and soft on the inside! My new favorite recipe ❤️
This bread recipe is amazing!!!! I’ve tried a lot of bread recipes but this one is the best one. The resulsts are great and the bread tastes really good. Thanks for the recipe!!!!😊❤️
Hi,
if i make one loaf tonight, can i put the other half of the dough in the fridge and bake it tomorrow?
Thanks!
I’ve never done that, but other commenters have said they’ve done it successfully!
Awesome recipe, maybe just mention right at the beginning that you should half the ingredients to make only one loaf. I only have 1 pan and now I have to sit with this extra dough until my first loaf is done….
It pretty much says that all through the recipe and there’s also a note at the bottom. The yield says 2 loaves.
You can form 2 loafs by hand with that extra dough.
can I use wheat flour?
It literally says through out the entire recipe that it makes two loaves. Maybe you should pay more attention.
One of the best bread recipes I’ve ever made–really great texture–fluffy is a good description. Tastes pretty much like high quality store bought white bread which is fine for what I wanted. Be warned though: look at the video for the consistency of the dough. I could only use 6 1/2 cup of flour and that was slightly drier than it looks in the video. During this shelter in place time, I used what I had in my pantry–some expired King Arthur bread flour and expired Fleishman’s regular yeast, yet it all came out great. I was careful to follow the directions to proof the yeast and fortunately it was fine.
I love this recipe and it’s so easy!
This bread is delicious! My picky daughter LOVES it. Thanks!!
I’ve made bread for over 40 years, and this recipe seriously makes the best bread I’ve ever made myself. I had to substitute 3 cups of white flour for the same amount in whole wheat flour (flour shortages, as apparently I’m not the only one using this shelter in place time to bake and bake and bake). Stunning bread and so, so easy to make (and even easier to eat). I’m going to bake it again today as I’m already almost out Cinnamon toast, egg salad sandwiches, fried egg sandwiches, brisket sandwiches, and more toast! Thank you so very, very much for the recipe.
Karen
Love this recipe! Made two loaves last week, and four today. Sharing the love with coworkers.
My first time … I was a little dubious at first, but my bread turned out just like the picture !!! I toasted two pieces and slathered with butter for breakfast, it was delicious !!! And my house smelled soooo good while it baked !!!
Do you think I could make this without the butter so it’s vegan? I’m interested to know what the butter adds :)
I used olive oil and it turned out perfection!
Hi Sophie, For lack of a more complex description, it makes it “buttery” ;-) But yes, you could make it without or use a substitute!
I’m not sure I understand how to substitute for active dry yeast instead? Can you explain that?
I used earth balance and it turned out absolutely perfect!
I could have been a bit more patient with the rising times, but bread still turned out great. Halved the recipe, which took way more Math than I was ready for.
Wanna share your 1/2 recipe measurements :)
Ide love half amounts also
Here are my halved measurements:
1 0.25 ounce yeast packet
1/2 cup + 1 1/2 cups water
1/8 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
5 tsp butter soft (I rounded up to 6 tsp = 2 tblsp)
4 1/2 to 5 cups flour
5 tsp butter melted (I rounded up to 6 tsp = 2 tblsp)
Here are my halved measurements:
1 0.25 ounce yeast packet
1/2 cup + 1 1/2 cups water
1/8 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
5 tsp butter soft (I rounded up to 6 tsp = 2 tblsp)
4 1/2 to 5 cups flour
5 tsp butter melted (I rounded up to 6 tsp = 2 tblsp)
This is only the second time I’ve made this recipe.
The first time, I neglected to check the internal temp.
When I made it this second time, I had it in for more than 40 minutes, it was browned, but didn’t reach an internal temp of higher than 160.
Am I doing something wrong?
Suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
Do you have an oven thermometer? Your oven might not be at the temperature it claims to be.
Hi Michelle, did I miss somewhere the size of the mixer needed? The dough climbed up my dough hook & over it, and into my machine a little. I have never used this much flour before in it. I took it out and kneaded it by hand, and it is rising now, but wow! How big is your mixer? My Kitchen Aid is about 25 years old, I wonder if they have been made bigger/ deeper over the years. I hadn’t seen anyone else have this problem, or I would have cut the recipe in half.
Thanks, looking forward to fresh bread!
I had the same problem with my kitchen aid and it’s a newer model
My kitchen aid is twenty five years old. I did not experience this issue. Initially eight cups of flour (I used the scoop method) and then added in about 1 and 1/4 more cups of flour during the initial mix.
Made my bread with my Bosch Universal Mixer. In response to the many comments about the difficulty with “dough climb,” I’ve decided to share my opinion about Kitchen Aid versus the Bosch.
I am so lucky to have had a Bosch Universal Mixer (called the Bosch Magic Mixer in 1950 plus. I had my first one for 20 years but lost custody in the divorce (seriously). I’ve had my second for 18 years and it is still going strong. The mixture has great attachments available, and also has a built in blender base that I think rivals the VitaMix. BUT best of all the motor gears up and down depending on the heaviness of the mixture in the bowl! You could never make as much bread with a KA as you can with a Bosch. I can make six – 8 loaves at a time. I can hear the motor gear down as the mix gets heavier. That ability saves your mixer’s motor! The quality of the Bosch is evidenced in the pricing of used ones. Rarely does anyone ever sell theirs unless they are unable to bake anymore or they die. I did find a nice used one daughter-in-law, but I had to look online for almost a year You can search “Bosch Universal” for the companies selling them, if you are interested. I am flabbergasted that most people don’t know about this mixer (I believe it is made in Germany). People know about Bosch appliances, and they know they are top top top of the line. But this mixer? No advertising, just word of mouth. You’d think one might see them on a show like Top Chefs or something. Excuse my rant LOL! Please consider doing some research and learn about this awesome mixer. My grown sons all want me to leave my mixer to them (“But I like to bake the most of the boys, Mom”).
Can I use bread flour instead of all purpose?
Hi Farrah, Yes, the texture may be slightly different but it will still work!
Hello! I have a 6qt and also a 7qt I bought a little bit ago. The 7qt has a deeper bowl. I usually had problems of the dough climbing up when I used the 6qt. But we would also make double the recipe because we’re a big family!
I halved the recipe and Mine was at its limit
What is the best way to reheat it after frozen to prevent it being rock hard
Hi Evelyn, I usually slice the loaf, then wrap it all up together in plastic wrap, then foil and place in a freezer bag, that way I can thaw slices as needed. About 20 seconds in the microwave is usually all that is needed.
The same thing happened to me. Mine is a newer model as well.
Hi Ellen, I have a 6 quart mixer and haven’t had an issue with that.
Came here to see if anyone had this problem bc Holy cow i had the same issue….she must have used some sort of industrial mixer and not a standard kitchen aid…..the dough climb was insane and nearly busted my mixer? The bowl flew off the base twice too. My kitchen was a mess. Flour everywhere….it’s rising now, i hope it is worth it!
It’s a fine bread. I used bread flour (I rarely use all-purpose for bread, I reserve that for cakes and things). I like the flavour of Chef John’s better, but the texture of this one much better. Halve the recipe for 2 loaves. It makes way too much dough. I’ve been baking bread for about 6 months, for reference on my experience level.
Thank you what size of cup are we talking about? 10 cups seems alot
Hi Bonny, A standard measuring cup (or 120 grams). I have found I need less flour during the winter (colder, drier air) and more flour in the summer (warmer, humid air). As I mentioned in the recipe, hold some back and then add only as much as you need. The recipe makes two very large loaves of bread.
Awesome bread recipe!! I haven’t made homemade bread in years, and I decided to give this recipe a try. I was looking for something that didn’t require bread flour. It was so easy to make, even with the hand-kneading (for 10 minutes) because I don’t have a mixer with dough hooks. My bread turned out as pretty as the loaves in your pictures. Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful recipe!
Smells so good! I halved the recipe and it turned out great.
Its tastes good!