White Bread For The Bread Machine (Updated Pictures!!)

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since I've had an instructable in the makings, but here's a new one, as of yet I can't find any bread maker recipes on this site, so heres one of my own I am going to share with you today.

Step 1 Ingredients List

This recipe is garenteed to bring you a plain, unadulterated white bread that I've found is delicious for everything from toast to using for soup.

Here are the ingredients you will be required to have:

• 1 Cup Warm Water
• 3 Tablespoons white sugar
• 1 - 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3 Cups Bread Flour
• 2 and 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

NOTE*

Don't forget to put the bread kneeders in the pan before you start, I made the mistake of getting all the flour in and then realize I had not installed the kneeders, way to go me.

Comments

[calikoala]

this was a great recipe, I came home today and decided to give it a try. My loaf came out almost exactly like the one you made. thanks the machine I used was a single paddle breadman pro.

[foothillfrontier]

THANK YOU! This is definitely the closest that I have come to finding a bread machine recipe that mimicks your average loaf of white bread. It's great because it has a good taste, but also has enough structure and strength to support sandwich making or even toast. I for one am sticking this in my recipe binder pronto!

[side note] I used King Arthur bread flour and Kosher salt

~wild tangent~ I did also notice that my bread smelled slightly like soft pretzel. which was likely due to my use of the Kosher salt. I wonder what would happen if I glazed the top of the bread with a soda solution and sprinkled it with more of the Kosher Salt. Soft Pretzel Bread adaptation? I think I'll find out sometime this week. I LOVE soft Pretzels!

[tuvaijid]

That might be ok for most, personally I prefer good old simple bread. Flour, water, a teaspoon of sugar and some yeast. But that's me. Keep up

[Punkguyta]

Thanks, You could do this recipe with all purpose flour and then it would be old simple bread, it tastes better with bread flour I think though.

[lcrosby]

bread flour has a higher gluten content.

you can buy a box of wheat gluten and add 6 tsp per loaf, it's the exact same thing as buying bread flour.

(conversely, cake flour has a low gluten content so it's better for cakes and dainty baked goods where one doesn't desire a coarse crumb)

the "plain old flour" is somewhere in between these two extremes.

some people are gluten-intolerant - for them maybe better to use low-gluten flour, but the crumb on the bread will be different.

[lcrosby]

having made this kind of bread hundreds of times, couple comments:
1) same amt of yeast as salt (1.5 tsp). With yeast, less is more!
2) the oil is for the "crispy" crust
3) milk  - I never add milk, but occasionally add milk powder. If I do, I much prefer Nido full cream powdered milk. None of that lowfat junk (tastes terrible)!
4) decrease the flour from 3 cups to 2-3/4. The bread machine can handle the "stickier" dough consistency and it makes a GREAT crumb. When kneading by hand, this "sticky" consistency is hard to work with because it sticks to your hands and makes a mess.
5) sugar - try molasses! yeast doesn't seem to like brown sugar or honey quite as much but any sugar will work, including corn syrup or treacle.

hey - great tip about removing the paddle for no holes in the loaf! I want to try that!

:>)

[nolte919]

In your ingredients list you say "1 - 1/2 teaspoons sal". What in the world is "sal"? My wife is allergic to milk and it's hard to find bread that doesn't contain it. Although, as you clearly indicate, milk isn't a necessity to make bread. Thanks for the recipe.

[Punkguyta]

That should be obvious but thank you for notifying me of the typo, You'll want 1-1/2 teaspoons salt in your water before you add the flour

[nolte919]

Wow. Sorry that wasn't obvious to me. Thanks for the clarification. I really didn't know what you meant by sal, I even tried Googling it. But you're right, now that you've told me it seems pretty obvious. I'll try to be less obtuse in the future or maybe just keep my questions to myself.

[Keiko_Kandy]

LMAO@Nolte919. Just to let you know, the bread I just made doesn't require any milk at all.....I was unaware most bread needed it. Google "How to make bread", and it's the first result....it takes you to a recipe on this Instructables website.

[Nabil]

Sal its Salt in spanish XD

[Punkguyta]

Ha ha! It's alright bro, you gotta ask questions to answer them sometimes, google DOESN'T "always" know what's best :P

[lemonie]

Looks asymmetrically tasty! Do you know what the machine is doing? I assume there's a warm period while the dough rises, some kneading and it finishes off by blasting it with heat. How long does the cycle last and what specific machine is it? Nice one L

[Punkguyta]

Oh, and it's a black and decker lemonie, :-/ Don't ask me, ask my moms about it...

[Punkguyta]

Aha! I knew someone would be wondering what happens to the bread while it's in the machine. I have some plans to use my old 92' era JVC camcorder and mount it above the breadmaker so it can see into the window. I just need a longer RCA cable for the video to go to my PC's capture card (it doesn't exactly record to tapes properly anymore, the picture is better than any webcam you can buy tho) I then want to turn that into a stop motion video of the bread mixing, rising, and browing. I plan to actually do this, and I'll put a video on this page when I do. As for telling you what it does, It sits at 3:20 when you start it, when you hit the start button it just sits there for 10-15 minutes, and then it starts to turn the kneaders one way, stop, then turn them the other way, and continue like that for another 10 minutes. Then it starts to spin the dough full speed for 10-15 minutes and then beeping before stopping to indicate that you can add ingredients then (carmelized onion bread anyone?) I think at some point before it lets it rise, it slowly turns the dough again for 5-10 minutes, and then the heat clicks on and the dough starts to rise and bake. Gah! I gotta go, someone's trying to burn me on a deal...sigh

[eviloverlord]

On most breadmakers the kneading paddle can be removed for cleaning. Assuming you're in the house when the breadmaker is running, remove the paddle inbetween the kneading and baking cycles and you'll not get a huge hole in your bread. In my breadmaker, I've been using the cheapest white flour I can find to make white bread with great success so don't panic if you run out of bread flour. I also add an egg into the mix, which improves both the taste and texture.

[Punkguyta]

I've thought of removing the kneaders in between, but I'm just afraid it would start kneading my hand or something in the middle of mixing but if it's done kneading, it's done lol. I will try an egg, that sounds like a good idea.

[Greenish Apple]

Nice Instructable, nice loaf. I can feel the texture and smell it from here. We have a bread maker and enjoy making several types of bread including gluten-free. My favorite has 1 tablespoon of pizza spice (bulk food store) and 2 tablespoons of minced, dried onion. We noticed at first that several loaves were not as big as they should be. So we started using bottled water. It helped, tap water usually is chlorinated which might kill the yeast. You could also just put a cup of water out on the counter overnight to allow the chlorination to dissipate. And on a green note, we microwave the water a bit to warm it up rather than running the tap. On yeast, make sure it is fresh. Put a little sugar in a glass with warm water and add some yeast. If it doesn't foam up it is old, don't use it. (We buy ours in bulk, about 1/2 a cup at a time.) David

[shooby]

Concerning your use of the microwave instead of running water, I often wonder which is more environmentally friendly. I tend to shift depending on what time of day it is. At 9am, people in my building have been getting ready for work, and the hot water comes quickly. Other times, less so. Is there an online source you can point me towards that discusses this issue?

[Punkguyta]

Mmm yeah, I want to try making pizza dough with it definitely :P That makes sense about the chlorinated water killing the yeast, but our town runs off a system of wells, I don't think they even put very much chlorine in there if they do at all. I'll try bottle water though and see what it does.. The yeast is fairly fresh, 2 weeks old at the very oldest, yeast doesn't go old fast does it?

[dustyplans]

Potato Bread is great also. That is the only bread my kids will eat out of the bread machine.

[Punkguyta]

Potato bread eh? How is that made?

[dustyplans]

1 1/4 c water 2 tbs butter melted 3 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup potatoe flakes 1/2 tsp salt 3/4 tsp yeast 1 tbs sugar/ Wet goods first. White bread medium crust normal cycle. GOOD.

[thepelton]

The microwave would also kill any unwanted microorganisms, not that I'm paranoid about illness, but some foreign wee beasty could cause you problems with your recipe.

[Punkguyta]

I doubt my town water is full of micro-organisms that want to hurt my bread recipe, at least I try not to look germophobically at things...

[thepelton]

I'm sorry if that came out sounding like I might have been implying there was something wrong with your town's water system. I just wanted to say that microwaving tends to sterilize things, and that can't hurt when you don't want anything competing with your yeast.

[Punkguyta]

No no, I didn't see it like that, actually if the water bridge that was going to built with the next town over like 3 years ago (they pull their water from the lake), then I would have agree'd with what you said, but there were enough people to fight against bridging the well water we get and the town water in the next town over... How exactly would they do that anyways? They were gonna connect the water mains somewhere along the highway beteween here and the next town over, but how would they set it up to share the water from both our water towers and theirs, it's beyond me.

[Greenish Apple]

shooby - We only run the microwave for 15 seconds to heat 1/2 cup of water. Just enough to raise the temperature of the water so the yeast can work sooner. If we don't the breadmachine will heat the liquid in the pan. I don't know of any online source on the issue. Sorry. Punkguyta - If the yeast is in a sealed container, in the fridge it should last several months or more. Since we buy it in bulk and make bread infrequently it makes sense to test it. I've had to throw out a batch or two because it would not work.

[Punkguyta]

I'm gonna try the sugar and water thing next time I go to make a loaf, as the crust on this loaf of bread tasted a bit soft and just..wasn't the same as my other breads I've made, using the exact same recipe and same preparation. If it's still ok, I'm gonna do what you said and keep it in the fridge, will it hurt it if it's tooo cold?

[thepelton]

I think the yeast will work, as long as it hasn't frozen. Whether it can freeze, and come back to life like some more advanced plants, I have no idea.