Who doesn’t love white bread? For me, white bread is a throwback to my childhood. I remember toasting slice after slice of “Wonderful” bread that I would pull out of a plastic bag. My favorite way to enjoy this sinfully processed treat was with a slather of butter, topped with cinnamon and sugar. Mmmmm, seriously sooo good. Now that I’m a bread baking enthusiast, bread doesn’t enter my house if it comes in a plastic bag, because I know there’s any simple way to make delicious white bread at home with only four ingredients and none of the preservatives. Here’s my recipe for an easy white bread for beginners.
The Ingredients
- Bread Flour 500g………………..(3 3/4 cups)
- Water 340g…………………………(1 1/2 cups, or 340ml to be more exact)
- Salt 10g………………………………(1 1/2 tsps)
- Instant Yeast 7g…………………..…(1 packet, or 2 1/4 tsps)
Video: Easy White Bread for Beginners
Here’s a link to watch this video on YouTube.
Mixing and Kneading
- Use your digital scale to measure the full amount of water into a large mixing bowl. If you are looking to get a digital scale, check out all of the baking tools that I recommend here.
- Next, add your salt and instant yeast directly into the mixing bowl. Stir them around with a wooden spoon or a bowl scraper so that they dissolve into the water.
- Then, add the final ingredient, the bread flour into the bowl. Stir everything together with your bowl scraper until all of the flour is hydrated. You’re just looking to keep mixing until there aren’t many dry bits of flour left.
- Once the dough comes together, it’s time to knead! You can knead the dough by hand for about 8-10 minutes on the counter or for 6-8 minutes in a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment.
A Note on Kneading: When kneading, resist the temptation to add flour to the counter or to the dough. Extra flour will change the hydration level of the dough and will make the bread denser. So, if the dough feels a little sticky at first, just use your dough scraper or a bench scraper to clean off your hands and the counter. Think like Dory and “just keep kneading!” The dough will get stronger and hold together better throughout the kneading process. No extra flour needed.
The First Rise
- After kneading, shape the dough into a ball and cover it up with a clean kitchen towel.
- Let the dough rise for 2 hours at room temperature. Ideally, you’re looking for your dough to double in size, whether this takes an hour and a half or three hours. Just pay attention to the dough.
Shaping and The Second Rise
- After the dough rises, carefully pre-shape the dough into a ball on your counter. Then cover it up and let it rest for 15 minutes.
- While the dough is resting on the counter, prepare a 2 lb bread pan by greasing it with oil or butter. Any standard bread pan will work for this, but if you want a great non-stick bread pan that I recommend, check out my recommended baking tools page.
- After the dough has rested for 15 minutes, shape it into a sandwich loaf shape like I show in the video. Roll the dough around in some flour to provide an extra non-stick layer around the dough. Then, carefully transfer the loaf, seam-side-down, into the pan.
- Cover the pan with a kitchen towel and let the dough rise for another hour.
Baking
- A half hour before you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 400°F or about 200°C. Place a metal baking pan in the lower rack of your oven. This will act as a “steam tray” so you can inject steam into your home oven.
- When the dough has risen for an hour, uncover it and slide it onto the middle rack of your hot oven.
- To add steam to your oven (recommended for a better crust on your bread) carefully pour a cup of hot or boiling water into the metal baking pan on the bottom rack of your oven. When the water hits the hot pan, it will produce steam which will improve the crust of the bread. Watch how I do this in the video for a visual.
- Bake the bread for 40 minutes at 400°F or 200°C.
- Remove the bread and let it cool for at least one hour before slicing.
Top and Enjoy!
The best part about this bread is enjoying it. If you want to take a trip down my own memory lane, top a slice of this toasted bread with a slather of real butter, a healthy sprinkle of white sugar, and a few dashes of cinnamon. This delicious, easy white bread for beginners make this best cinnamon-sugar toast I have ever had. I hope you enjoy it. Happy baking!
Other Recipes to Try from Grant Bakes
- Good Sourdough Bread (My favorite sourdough recipe)
- Pumpkin Sourdough Bread
- 100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread That Is Actually Good
- Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread