Description
This basic white bread is a great beginner baking recipe with very little active time. There’s no fancy ingredients or techniques required, and after you make it, you’ll wonder why you’ve never tried to make before. Toast will become 1000% better.
Ingredients
Scale
- 1 and 3/4 cups milk (whole milk, your favorite dairy free milk)
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 tablespoon yeast (instant or active-dry)
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 800 g all-purpose flour ( 6 and 2/3 cups)
- soft butter or other solid fat for greasing the loaf pan (lard, coconut oil)
- 1 egg for egg wash (optional)
- Sesame seeds or everything bagel seasoning (optional)
- Instructions
Instructions
- Dissolve yeast in the warm water, then add in the honey. Set aside for 5 minutes.
- Heat the milk in a small saucepan until just warm.
- Place the yeast mixture, milk, and olive oil in a large bowl. Add in the flour, then the salt. Stir with a wooden spoon to create a rough dough, then move on to kneading.
- To knead by hand, lightly flour a work surface, then dump out the contents of the bowl. Use your hands to push the dough away from yourself, then roll it back towards yourself. Continue this motion for about 10 minutes until you get a smooth dough. Alternatively, mix with a dough hook in a stand mixer on low speed for about 5 minutes.
- Form the dough into a ball, then place the dough in a clean bowl sprayed with cooking spray. Cover with plastic wrap until it’s doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.
- Fold one side of the dough back on itself towards the center of the bowl. Repeat with the opposite side of the dough. Cover again and rest for another 30 minutes.
- Grease two 9″x5″ loaf pans with the soft butter. You can place a piece of parchment to line the bottom of the long side if you like, though it’s not critical.
- Lightly flour a work surface, then divide the dough into 2 pieces with a bench scraper.
- Pat one piece of dough into a rectangle the length of your loaf pan. Tightly roll up the dough along the long edge to create a log. Pinch the bottom of the dough together to seal up the seam. Repeat with the second piece of dough, then cover the loaves with a damp towel until the dough has risen near the rim of the pan–about 20-30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F (180C) while the dough is rising in the pans.
- (Optional but awesome): Whisk 1 egg with 1 tsp water to create an egg wash. Just before the loaves go in the oven, brush on the egg wash with a pastry brush. Sprinkle the loaves with sesame seeds or everything bagel seasoning.
- Bake the bread for 45-50 minutes until golden brown and hollow sounding when you rap the bread with your knuckles.
- Let the bread cool completely, then slice and enjoy.
Notes
- This bread will keep for a couple days at room temp or for a couple months in the freezer, tightly wrapped and sealed in a plastic bag.
- To make this dairy free, choose dairy free milk or water in place of the milk, and use coconut oil to grease the pan.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Additional Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 114
- Sugar: 1
- Sodium: 151
- Fat: 1
- Saturated Fat: .41
- Carbohydrates: 21
- Fiber: 1
- Protein: 3
- Cholesterol: 1