The BEST and simplest homemade Bread recipe made with just six simple pantry ingredients
This bread is super soft, light, and airy, and it tastes amazing. It is so easy to make that you won’t have to buy bread again. In a bowl, add slightly warm water, honey, salt, and yeast.
Stir the mixture until the ingredients dissolve in the water. Then add soft butter and plain, all-purpose, or bread flour.
Combine everything until you get a shaggy mass of dough, and now we need to knead the dough. Transfer the dough onto a clean work surface and knead by hand. Initially, the dough is slightly sticky, but don’t add the flour.
Just stretch the dough, fold it back on itself, turn it and repeat the process such that it forms a long thread of gluten.
Keep kneading for 5 to 6 minutes. You can add a little bit of water or flour if kneaded. Then, after kneading for 7 to 8 minutes, the dough becomes a little soft. The dough is ready if it passes the window test. When it is done, cover the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.
It gives you time to rest, and the dough absorbs moisture, and the proteins gather into long gluten threads. After 10 minutes, knead the flour again for 2 minutes. The dough now becomes smooth and soft and springs back when tapped.
Lightly oil a clean bowl, settle the dough in it and cover it with oil, then wrap it with plastic paper and let it sit for 2 hours to rise in size. After 2 hours, transfer it to a floured surface and shape your dough. Using your hands, degas the dough and fold it into a rectangle.
Fold the bottom top up and fold the top down so that it overlaps the other layer, turn 90 degrees and flatten it into a long rectangle using a rolling pin to make sure there are no air pockets inside. Roll it just as you roll a jelly roll. Pinch the dough to seal the edges.
And do the same on both sides. This will make the bread have a swirl shape. The dough needs to get the tension on top to help the dough get a good oven. Hold the dough with your hands, drag it slowly to your side, and place it onto a greased baking pan.
Wrap it with plastic wrap and let it rise for about 70 to 75 minutes. Once risen, bake the cake in a 350°F preheated oven for 32 to 35 minutes. The top of the bread will get browned at around 25 minutes of baking.
This does not mean it is done; if you take it out at this point, the centre of the bread will be doughy and the bread will have a yeasty smell, so wait until it is properly baked. Once it is baked, remove it from the oven and immediately transfer it from the pan onto the cooling rack to cool down completely.
Then apply butter on top of the bread. The bread can be served with butter, it can be toasted, it can be used to make a sandwich, and it can also be served with soup or stew.
Ingredients;
- 357 g Flour or 2 3/4 cups
- 210 ml Warm water or 1 cup-2 tbsp
- 1 tsp Instant yeast (Active dry yeast 1 and 1/4 tsp)
- 1 tsp Salt
- 42.6 g Butter or 3 tbsp
- 1 tbsp Sugar or honey, or more, according to your preference
Instructions;
- Into a bowl, add the lukewarm water, honey, salt, and yeast, and stir to dissolve. Add in the softened butter and then the flour.
- Combine everything to form a shaggy mass of dough.
- Transfer it onto a clean work surface and knead the dough for around 8 minutes. Cover them and leave them for another 10 minutes.
- Knead the dough for 2 more minutes and do the windowpane test to check the doneness of the dough.
If it passes the windowpane test, our dough is ready for the first proofing. Otherwise, knead for a few more minutes to get your dough properly done. - Lightly oil a clean bowl and place the dough inside it. Cover it with a damp cloth or plastic film and let it rise for 2 hours.
- After two hours, transfer the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and degas the dough.
- Fold in three parts to form a rectangle, and then flatten it again into a long rectangle.
- Make sure there are no air bubbles in the sheet.
- The breadth of the rectangle should be slightly less than the length of the baking pan.
- Roll it just as we roll a jelly roll. Pinch the edges and sides to seal.
- Drag the shaped dough to create a tense surface on top. This can give a good oven rise.
- Place the shaped dough onto a greased baking pan.
- Cover it with a damp cloth or plastic film, let the dough rise for 70-80 minutes and bake the bread at 350 degrees Fahrenheit preheated oven for 32-35 minutes.
