There are many bread machine recipes out there, but if you’re looking for just basic and simple homemade white bread – this is the perfect recipe for you!
This is my reliable, “boring”, proven recipe for a basic white bread. And, I also provide tips on how to make a homemade white bread less dense in a bread maker. In this recipe, all you do is spend 5 minutes to add ingredients to the bread pan and the bread machine does all the work, on an automatic cycle that is already programmed. That’s the whole purpose of the bread maker, right? The end result is a tasty loaf of white bread just of the right density.
I do believe that the day will come when I will use a bread machine for something more sophisticated, but for once this week I am sharing the recipe that doesn’t require too much thinking or meddling. Sometimes it’s just nice to make certain foods almost on auto-pilot, especially for basic stuff, like white bread.
In the last 3 months I hardly bought any store-made bread, baking about a loaf every week at home, using bread machine recipes. And, I’ve noticed a couple of trends/issues when making bread: sometimes the bread comes out way too dense, or the loaf does not rise enough and, as a result, comes out even denser. So, here I will describe the homemade bread recipe that works for me to produce a less dense bread in a bread maker, using a basic cycle.
While making bread in a bread machine, make sure to consider these points:
– When you measure flour using cups, make sure not to pack flour too dense in a measuring cup, otherwise you will end up with much more flour than you need, and, therefore, the bread will come out denser. Measuring flour correctly will solve a lot of “dense” issues. The trick that works for me is that I use 1/3 measuring cup to carefully scoop all flour I need into the bread machine (usually about 3 cups), without over-packing it. Another way would be to weigh flour, which I don’t do, but it’s a solution.
– Use bread flour, not regular all-purpose flour for all bread machine recipes. Bread flour contains a higher percentage of gluten than regular all-purpose flour. Using bread flour will produce taller, less dense loaves. If you use all-purpose flour (which has smaller percentage of gluten than bread flour), your loaves will be flatter and denser.
– When adding yeast, make sure you add it last, and add it on top of dry ingredients (flour). Make sure the yeast does not reach wet ingredients. Basically, make a small indentation on top of flour and add the yeast to the indentation, just like this:
And here is the simple white bread recipe. I started with the recipe that came in a little booklet together with my Williams-Sonoma bread machine, and I tweaked the ingredient measurements based on my preferences. It takes 10 minutes to prepare all ingredients together, and then it takes 3 hours and 15 minutes to bake the bread in a bread machine.
I've tried many bread machine recipes, and this one works perfectly for me to make simple white bread. The bread is tall, not dense, of perfect composition. Basic recipe for a bread maker machine.
- 1 cup and 3 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 3 1/4 cups white bread flour
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
The proper way to measure flour using measuring cups is to aerate it first. This is done either by sifting flour, or aerating it by fluffing it up and whisking it well, then spooning it into the measuring cup, then carefully removing any excess flour with a knife. If you just stick that measuring cup in the bag of flour and scoop some out, you will get a lot more flour than what the recipe calls for. Do aerate the flour, or you will end up with dry dough!
Add water and oil into the bread pan. Add salt, sugar. Add flour.
Make a small indentation on top of flour and make sure it does not reach wet ingredients. Add the yeast to the indentation.
Keep yeast away from the salt.
Insert the bread pan into the bread machine, press it down to snap. Close the lid.
Use Basic bread, 1.5 lb loaf, medium crust cycle (3 hrs 15 minutes)
When bread is done, remove the bread pan using oven mitts. Turn over the bread pan and shake it to release the loaf. Let the loaf cool on a wire rack for about 30 minutes.
The recipe is adapted from Williams-Sonoma bread machine booklet.
Have not used my bread maker in years so I pulled it out of the closet. Looked up a recipe for bread and yours came up!! So excited!!
The bread come out okay but I didn’t get those lovely air pockets displayed in the photo. It was more dense. Maybe I should have used 2.5lb setting instead of 1.5lbs?
I followed the instructions exactly
WhT temperature does the water need to be? Is this regular yeast or quick rising yeast? Thanks!!!
I just got a new bread machine and made 2 loaves of bread that was supposed to be soft bread but it wasn’t. Then I found and tried your recipe. It was the best homemade bread I’ve ever made. Thank you so much. I took your advice on the flour and sifted, then spooned it into my cup. I’m so happy that I finally have a recipe that makes bread that can be used for sandwiches and doesn’t need to be toasted to taste good. You made my day Julia!