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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 ⅓ 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.
Bread Machine Recipe: How to make homemade white bread less dense
Ingredients
- 1 cup and 3 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 3 ¼ cups white bread flour
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
Instructions
Important note about properly measuring flour using measuring cups:
- 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!
How to make bread in a bread machine:
- 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.
Notes
- The recipe is adapted from Williams-Sonoma bread machine booklet.
- I have recently tweaked this recipe and made a delicious rustic Bread Machine Garlic & Herb Bread (with fresh rosemary and thyme) - worth checking out!
My Other Bread Recipes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist's advice.
Hi Julia,
I just started making breads with the bread machine lately. Was finding way to improve the texture and fluffiness of the bread and i chance upon your website!
Am very keen to try out with your recommended recipe! I would like to check with you how many grams or ml does 1 cup equate to? 🙂
1 Cup = 237 ml.
Hi Jared,
Thanks! the bread turn our fabulous! soft and fluffy!
I am glad you found my site - welcome! 1 cup of bread flour equals 120 grams or 4 1/4 ounces. 1 cup of water equals 250 ml or 8 fl oz.
Ww2Followed your recipe tonight. Excellent instructions to make a tasty loaf. Will be using my bread machine regularly each week from now on. Thank you
You are very welcome! I am glad you found the instructions useful.
First time using the breadmaker and followed Julia’s recipe. Bread turned out perfect! So good to have freshly baked bread and butter
So happy to hear that! Yes, freshly baked bread is the best!
Your website is confusing but the bread is delicious.
I have tried soooo many recipes!!! This one worked!! I wonder about making it a cinnamon raisin bread using it as a base?
I am so glad you found this recipe useful! I have not made a cinnamon raisin bread yet.
We just LOVE this recipe. Thank you Julia 🙂
You are welcome! Thank you for your comment!
I was given a free an old bread machine Tiffany TBM131 with no manual and recipe to help me the first step of using it. Hope you can help me with the instructions and recipe. Thanks
Weighed all ingredients. Turned out perfect. Thank you!
You are very welcome! I am glad you enjoyed the recipe!
Please help I mis something.
In the ingredients you mention: 1 cup and 3 tablespoons water.
What is the purpose of 3 tablespoons of water.
The one cup is fine, but the three tablespoons of water is may be for luck
I dont usually leave comments, but I had to here! The tip about aerating the bread saved my interest in my breadmaker!! I made this recipe (just added 1 tsp of vinegar to give it a more sour flavor) and the bread was PERFECT!!! All I wanted to do was sit and eat homemade bread all day! THANK YOU!!! I'm trying it as a cinnamon raisin base as I type this, a bit of brown sugar (in addition to the white) to sweeten, plus cinnamon and cloves and of course the raisins.
Thank you, Tiffany! So happy you found the tip about aerating the flour useful!
Yes, regarding the areating the flour...my load came out heavy because I didn't. Thanks for the tip!
You are very welcome! 🙂
Same! I never do this and previously didn’t have problems... but with our new bread maker we’ve not had good loaf luck! So when I read the explanation thought it would solve this And we had success.
Only thing I changed was used 2 cups white and 1.25 cups whole wheat. Yum
Happy to hear that! Thank you for sharing your comment! 🙂
Awesome recipe, thank you! It's great as is, without any modifications. When I want something a bit different, I add chia seeds, dry fruit, or other "fun" goodies -- just a bit, for some boost of flavor. Using whey or buttermilk works even better. Also, using butter instead of oil adds aroma.
Great tip on aerating the flour -- I did not know that for years! In frustration, I gave my bread maker to Mom -- who proceeded to make an awesome loaf of bread, very similar to this recipe. I was like, what?! Then I observed her making bread... she always mixes white bread flour with some wheat bread flour and keeps the mix in a large airtight bin. Before she measures, she fluffs up the flour! Exactly what you said to do! I still can't replicate my Mom's bread but my bread is pretty good, too.
Yes, aerating the flour is such a simple but important thing to do, especially when making homemade bread! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave such a thoughtful comment! I really appreciate it.
You are very welcome! Your additions sound wonderful!
Finally got something right. I made bread 3 times on my bread machine and though they tasted okay, they were too heavy, dry and dense. I followed the recipe to the T and I couldn’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. I tried this one and finally finally got the soft white bread I’ve been longing for. Thanks a lot for sharing this. It even looked just like you pictured.
So happy to hear that! Thank you for taking the time to leave such a nice and thoughtful comment. Glad that you found this recipe useful!
I have made this several times with 365 grams of AP flour and 25 grams of gluten. (If you're not using a scale, you're really not doing it right.) It turns out beautifully, though I did cut the salt down to 1 tsp as I found the 1 1/2 tsp to be a bit much.
Justin ~ How did you come up with your cup-gram conversion for the flour. I don't come up with the same thing you do at all. And if you are weighing flour, you should be weighing everything. But I would really like to know what you are using as your base for cups - grams of flour.
Hi Julie I am tickled pink (actually burgundy. I'm a black lady..Lol). Just came across your recipe and my little loaf came out just like your pictures, including the slices, which are super light and fluffy! (I did add a 1/4 cup of oats because I'm working on getting my cholesterol under control. Can't even tell the oats are in it.) Aerating the flour REALLY made the difference. I'm going to add some honey next go round. Thanks so much.
So glad you found this recipe useful! Adding oats is a great idea! Thank you so much for leaving such a wonderful comment!
I will try it out as most of the bread I make are heavy the last one look like Madeira-cake but not as sweet
Enjoy!
Do you heat the water up first? Is it straight from the tap, ie, cool? I'm within an hour of the bread supposing to be done and it has not risen!
I didn't heat the water, just used room temperature water.