White Bread Recipe

square image of a loaf of white bread cut open to show the crumb

Homemade White Bread is a simple recipe that will fill your house with the amazing aroma of freshly baked bread and is fun and easy to make!

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 30

Rising Time 1 45

Total Time 2 35

Servings loaves

Calories 109kcal

Author Julie Kotzbach

Equipment

Ingredients

5 ½ cups all-purpose flour or bread flour
¼ cup nonfat dry milk
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (one 1/4-ounce packet)
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups warm water (115 degrees F)
2 tablespoons butter melted (optional)

Instructions

Add 2 cups of the flour along with the dry milk, sugar, butter, yeast, and salt to the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the hook attachment, mix for a few turns just enough to combine. Add the warm water and mix until combined.
On slow speed, begin to add the flour a little at a time until you've added another 3 cups of flour (5 cups total). Turn the mixer up to medium-high speed. The dough should clean the sides of the bowl after a couple of minutes. If it doesn’t, add a little flour at a time until it does, only add up to another ½ cup of flour, no more.
Continue to mix/knead the dough on medium-high speed for 10 minutes. The dough will become smooth and elastic.
Spray the dough with a little non-stick cooking spray and roll it around in the bowl, so it is lightly oiled. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place in your house for about 1 hour.
Take off the plastic wrap and punch the dough down while it's in the bowl to release the air bubbles. Lightly flour a clean work surface. Turn the dough out onto the work surface and knead it a few times by hand to get any additional air bubbles out, for about 1 minute.
Spray two 9-inch x 5-inch loaf pans with non-stick cooking spray. Divide the dough into two equal pieces. With your hands, roll them out into a log. Place each log into a prepared loaf pan.
Let the bread loaves rise on the counter, uncovered until doubled in size, about 30-45 minutes. While they are doing this second rise, preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.
Once the dough has doubled, make a slit down the center of the bread if desired. Place the loaves into the oven on the middle rack and immediately lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden brown.
Remove the loaves from the oven. If desired, immediately brush the tops of the bread with melted butter (this is optional). Let the bread loaves cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Notes

Nutritional information is based on the loaves being cut into 15 slices each.
If you have bread flour, you can also use it 1:1 for AP flour. We think the bread flour version comes out a touch lighter, but either way, still amazing!! Most people don’t have bread flour on hand regularly which is why we made this with AP flour to make it easier!
If the water is too hot it will kill the yeast. Use a thermometer to ensure the water is between 110 to 115 degrees F.

Nutrition