Simple White Bread Recipe

This white bread recipe will help you make soft and fluffy sandwich bread using only six basic ingredients in five simple steps.

Ingredients

• Flour: 357 g or 2 3/4 cup
• Warm water: 210 ml or 1 cup-2 tbsp
• Instant yeast: 1 tsp(Active dry yeast 1 and 1/4 tsp)
• Salt : 1 tsp
• Butter: 42.6 g or 3 tbsp
• Sugar or honey : 1 tbsp or more according to your preference

Method

We can make this soft white bread in five simple steps

1.Prepare the dough

Into a bowl, add in the lukewarm water, honey or sugar,salt,yeast and stir to dissolve the ingredients in water.

Add in the softened butter.

Add the flour.

Combine everything together to form a shaggy mass of dough.

If you are kneading with stand mixer then it will be so much easier for you to knead the dough.

Knead the dough until it passes the window pane test.

What is window pane test?

The windowpane test is one of the best ways to tell if you’ve sufficiently kneaded your bread dough. If you can stretch the dough without it breaking, that means the gluten is well-developed and your dough is ready to rise.

Here in this recipe, we do a trick to reduce the kneading time.

After kneading the dough for 6-8 minutes ,cover the dough for 10 minutes and after that knead it for 2-3 minutes and your dough will easily pass the window pane test.

This 10 minutes resting time will help in absorbing the extra moisture in dough and which will help the proteins to form long gluten strands.

Our dough will be soft and smooth and it will bounce back when pressed and it will still show a tendancy to stick on to the surface.

Now our dough is ready for the first proofing.

If you don’t want to knead the dough, then you will love these No knead Bread recipes.

Light and Airy Ciabatta Bread recipe

Easy No knead Sandwich Bread

Soft and delicious No knead dinner rolls

No knead Rustic Dutch oven bread

2.First Proofing

Lightly oil a clean bowl and place the dough inside it and then wrap it with a plastic film and let the dough stand rise in a warm environment for 2 hours or until it gets doubled in size.

If you want to skip double proofing, you can try these Easy Faster One Rise Bread Recipes

Quick and Easy Dinner rolls recipe

Delicious One Rise Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

3.Shape the dough

After the proofing, transfer the dough on to a lightly floured work surface.

Degas the dough and form it into a rectangle.

Fold the bottom third over on it self and then fold the top of the dough down so that it overlaps the other layers.

Now flatten this rectangle in to a long rectangle.

We need to make sure there are no air pockets inside; other wise there will be large air holes of different sizes in our bread

Roll the dough just as we roll a jelly roll.

Pinch the edges to seal.And dont forget to seal the two sides as well.

To get the best oven rise, we need a tensive surface on top.So drag the shaped dough towards you and you will see the surface get tighten.

Now our dough is ready for the final rising.

So place the dough into a greased baking pan and cover it with aplastic film.

4.Final rising

Let the dough sit and rise in warm environment for 70-75 minutes.

5.Bake the bread

Bake at 350 F preheated oven for 32-35 minutes.

The top of the bread will start browning at around 25 minutes of baking.It doesn’t mean our bread is done.

At this point if we take it out, the center of the bread will have a doughy texture and it will smell very “yeasty”

So wait for 35 minutes to bake it properly.

When the bread is done,take the pan out of the oven.

Demould the bread and place it on a wire rack and let it cool down completely before slicing it.

If you want your crust to be more soft,smear the top with some butter.

The bread will be golden brown in color,with a thin soft crust and soft and fluffy crumb inside.

Enjoy!

How to check the doneness of this white bread

Different Ovens may perform slightly differently.And the baking duration vary according to the size of bread pan.But anyhow,we will get to the right conclusion of baking temperature about your oven in a few trials.

1. Visually :The Bread should be golden brown on all sides and not only on the top.If you see the sides are not golden brown in color ,most likely the inside will not be cooked enough.So bake for another five more minutes and check again.

2. Tap the Bottom – Take the loaf out of the oven and remove from the pullman loaf tin,and turn it upside down. Tap the bottom of bread with your thumb, like striking a drum. The bread will sound hollow when it’s done.

3. Take the Internal Temperature – Insert an instant read thermometer into center of the loaf. This pullman bread is done, when the internal temperature is closer to 200°.

If you’re ever in doubt, it’s better to cook the loaf a little longer than to undercook it. An extra five minutes isn’t going to burn the crust, and the worst that will happen is that your bread will be a bit on the dry side. But better dry than un-baked!

Also, if you’re consistently having trouble with over- or under-baked loaves, check the temperature of your oven with an oven thermometer.

How to store this white sandwich bread ?

The bread can be stored at room temperature in a cool dry place for up to 2-3 days.Wrap it with plastic film or keep it in paper bag.

Heat and humidity causes bread to mold. So if you want to store it for longer, wrap it well and keep it in refrigerator.The bread will stay good for up to seven days in refrigerator.But the chance of bread getting dry is more if we keep it in refrigerator.

Can I freeze this white bread ?

Yes you can freeze this white sandwich bread.Simply wrap the bread in plastic or aluminum foil to protect it from freezer burn and keep frozen for up to one month.

Take it out whenever you need and just put it in a toaster or in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, and you’ll get fresh bread ready to eat.

Why is my bread dense and heavy?

• Your rise is too short or too long.  If the rising time is too short, the yeast won’t have a chance to create bubbles and Carbon dioxide to make the bubbles expand.  If too long, the dough will collapse onto itself.
• The temperature during rise is too hot or too cold.  The ideal temperature for yeast growth is just overy about 100F, though room temperature is fine as long as you give the yeast more time to work.
• Probably the yeast is not active. Try different yeast.
• Your dough can’t hold its shape because the flour lacks gluten.This usually happens when we make bread using whole grains like whole wheat flour.In such cases,you can try adding little bread flour or add vital wheat gluten to your dough.

Why is my white bread not cooked in the middle?

When the baking temperature is higher than the recipe suggests, the outer crust will get baked quickly and it may turn brown in a few minutes.But at the same time, the inside of the bread will remain uncooked.

• Oven too hot at beginning; If the crust browns too early, the loaf can’t expand to its maximum volume. This interferes with the inner texture of the bread.
• If it’s taken from the oven too soon; just because the outside looks done, and the baking is actually incomplete, the inner crumb will be gummy and lacking in flavor. 

Solution:You should decrease the baking temperature and take more time to bake bread and you’ll get perfectly cooked and colored bread 🙂

Why my sandwich bread collapse ?

Overproofing the bread dough can cause structural weakness, resulting in collapse.

When the second rise (or the rising of dough after it is been shaped) is longer than the recipe suggests, the gluten strands will expand much higher; and when baked in oven, the starch gelatinize and the proteins coagulate and thus the gluten strands curl up, tightening their links with each other, and solidifying the bread’s structure and it will loose its strength and will not be able to hold its structure or shape and it will collapse.

Why my sandwich bread didn’t rise ?

If the Bread did not rise, the probable reasons are connected with yeast and its activity.

• So Its better to Proof the yeast before using.   
• Check the proper water temperature before dissolving the yeast. (Ideal Temperature:110F)
• Some experts says ,Salt added directly to the yeast inhibits or kills it.
• Dough too stiff because too much flour during mixing or kneading; dough should be tacky after mixing, smooth after kneading

How to reheat the white bread ?

• Preheat the oven to 350 °F (177 °C). This is the best temperature for reheating bread. Any hotter and the bread could burn quickly. A lower temperature would require a longer cooking time, resulting in dry bread. If you want a soft interior with a chewy crust, 350℉ (175℃) is the way to go.
• Spray some water on the bread or cover the bread with an aluminum foil (so that the bread will not get dry when baked)
• Place you bread inside the preheated oven and bake for about 10 minutes.You will get bread as it is freshly baked.Larger bread loaf may require 5 more minutes of baking.
• If you want to make your bread moist, warm and chewy, then you can steam the bread.
• Toast your bread in a toaster.

Why my sandwich bread is having strong yeast smell?

• Over-risen bread dough. Stop the rising when the dough has almost doubled in size (use finger-top test).
• Incomplete baking. If the bread is not baked properly in the middle ,the bread will smell “yeasty”
• Not kneading enough.
• Too much yeast.

Why the crust of my sandwich bread is too thick ?

• Kneading problems. When finished kneading, dough should be ‘tacky’, not dry.
• Oven temperature too low.Which leads to longer baking time which can result in thick crust.
• Bread overbaked.

Watch the video to see how easy it is to make this simple white bread

5 Tips for making the best sandwich bread every time you bake.

1. Measure your ingredients using a weighing scale because every cup of flour can weigh differently depending on how you fill it.
2. Yeast is one of the most important ingredient in bread making.So always check the expiry of the yeast. If unsure, combine the yeast with water/milk and sugar/honey,from the recipe and let stand 5 minutes. If it gets foamy the yeast is good to go if not,its best to buy fresh yeast.
3. The temperature of liquid ingredient in the recipe can kill(if hot) or make the yeast inactive(if cold).So it is crucial in making bread.Ideal temperature should be around  110 F (must be warm but not hot) .In my opinion, if not sure about the temperature, keep in mind that higher temperature will kill yeast which cannot be reversed but low temperature will make the yeast dormant for a few time but it will get activated even if it takes some time.
4. While kneading the dough, you may find the dough to be too sticky to handle in the beginning.At this time, we may get tempted to add more flour in to this but don’t do that.A soft loose well-hydrated dough is not necessarily a bad thing, it often will give you soft fuffy bread. 
5. Baking temperature should be not too hot,as it will cause the crust to form too fast and the inside to be uncooked.Baking temperature should not be too low,because ignorer to bake our bread properly, we may need to bake for a very long time and it will create a very thick crust which is unpleasant and make the bread more dry.