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How To Make Bread

video How To Make Bread

So many people are discouraged from trying to make bread because they think it's too difficult, or that you need special ingredients or equipment. It's actually incredibly simple to make a really tasty loaf of fresh bread.

This video demonstrates a great beginner recipe for bread - if you find you like baking, you'll probably advance really quickly to other recipes - but this one is straightforward and simple - an excellent place to start.

As it says in the video: you're supposed to use 'strong' bread flour, but this recipe/demonstration just uses ordinary plain flour - and still works just fine.

39 comments

Aug 18, 2010. 12:47 PM

your dog says:

can you please put this video back on? I have been craving your Stuffed Crust Pizza for the past 3 minutes and cannot live without it!

Jan 22, 2010. 7:48 AMJent13 says:

Hey i really wanted to make this bread so i could make the bread bowels but MetaCafe says that ur video is no longer there so could u post it again or as least put the recipe up on here

Jun 18, 2009. 2:13 PMbecauseican says:

u weghed ur flour. i dont have a scale how many cups should i use thanks

Apr 8, 2009. 4:27 PMZarkazmo says:

I can't view the video. I get a message about the Video being removed by MetaCafe. Can someone give me the recipe/basic instructions?

Jan 18, 2009. 7:51 PMcd41 says:

Video has been removed from MetaCafe

Dec 28, 2008. 8:05 AMcake diva says:

I'd love to learn how to do this, but the video won't play. Can you check on this? - thanks

Nov 26, 2008. 12:46 PMemergencydpt.com says:

AAARG! It's the day before thanksgiving and the video won't play! Typical.

Nov 20, 2008. 5:55 PMPKTraceur says:

I beleive the bread you are making is called "Butterzopf" or some form of European Country, (Italy i beleive..... some name in latin...)which is a good bread to start bread making. I, Myself, have only made about 3 loafs of bread, however none were like this.

Nov 10, 2008. 2:57 AMfredrude says:

I've tried this recipe twice and both times it has come out a little doughy/moist. Can anyone offer any suggestions as to what I may be doing wrong? Many thanks!

Aug 29, 2008. 8:47 PMcuriouscalderon says:

Good tutorial, what is the equivalent measure of 450 grams to cups? since I don't have a scale to weight. And would that flour need to be packed in tightly or loose inside the cup? Thanks for the info. Cheers.

Nov 6, 2008. 4:04 PMseeem says:

Try not to be so scientific about it, making bread allows for a lot of variation. Use an approximate amount, by sight - first- and go through the whole lesson, I'd bet you'd have success. If it rises, you're winning: water temperature is important, but you can vary this too, it should be nice and warm, but not hot, just about skin temperature. If your flour mix (use a knife to mix) is too dry (start off with too little water cos you can't take it out once it's in!!) add a little more water, if it just pops over being right, add a little more flour......... making bread is something of a skill, but it isn't so scientific that everything has to be down to the gram. Good luck!

Nov 6, 2008. 3:59 PMseeem says:

This is a good video, explains making bread in an easily understandable way- I'm pretty good at making bread but nowhere near as good as I want to be - I've yet to make the lovely soft large loaf that I want, like a bloomer...... Oh well- I never get sick of trying :D - nice video thanks

Aug 13, 2008. 1:13 PMsee-saw says:

Here's my first attempt at making bread... Thanks for great 'ible, it made it soooo easy. seesaw

Apr 14, 2008. 2:16 PMBoboHC says:

My issue with it at the moment is the bread usually doesn't quite double in size over the course of the whole process and the bread comes out really dense and chewy. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Apr 14, 2008. 4:45 PMMangetout (author) says:

It may be that your dough is a little too dry - although the measures given should work, flour is variable in the amount of water it can absorb. (one other way it could have gone wrong is the measures - a UK pint is about 1.2 US Liquid pints - so if you used a US Pint measure, that would make the dough too dry) When it's first mixed, the dough should be just a bit too sticky and loose to handle - it will become less sticky as the gluten develops during kneading, and you can manage it up to that point by keeping on dusting with just a little flour. It's easier to make a sticky, over-wet dough manageable by adding and working in small amounts of flour than it is to make a dry dough manageable - in fact once it's a dough, it's very hard to incorporate more moisture at all. So err on the side of wet, if possible.

Apr 15, 2008. 3:34 PMJoe Martin says:

To make a prover of sorts I put a small pan of water in the bottom of the oven for humidity, heat the oven for about 5 mins or so on a high temp, turn it off, cling film the bowl that the dough's in, put a wooden trivet on the self in the oven that I'm about to put the bowl on (I didn't want hot metal on the bowl, especially since I have stainless steel bowls) and chuck the bowl on the trivet and just keep checking it to see if it doubles. This has worked fine for me for a while now and might work for you. Also 50g of butter in with the water works fantastically, The dough tastes a lot nicer now as before it had quite a strong yeasty taste and smell to it and now well it smells like proper bread if that makes sense and I use strong white bread flour of which I have stocked up on! Theres also one more problem once its out of the oven it all seems to disappear very quickly so might have to double it all up next time. Joe

Apr 16, 2008. 12:12 AMMangetout (author) says:

Thanks for that - it sounds like you're having fun!

Apr 16, 2008. 10:49 PMBoboHC says:

The problem was that I was killing the yeast. Since I'm a bread-baking newbie, I was unaware that overly warm/hot water absolutely destroys the yeast making it really chewy and dense in the end. Warm bathwater or "water as warm as you'd want to swim in" was my final result after asking relatives what I could possibly be doing wrong. After that, everything went great! Thanks for the instructable!

Jun 20, 2008. 12:03 AMcontainer_gardener says:

The bath water analogy is a great tip! Thanks!

Apr 17, 2008. 1:59 AMMangetout (author) says:

Ah, yes - if it's uncomfortable to put your finger in, it's too hot for the yeast - although you might get away with having the water slightly too hot if the dry ingredients are well mixed and some of the heat is dissipated into the flour. I generally make my warm water from one third boiling water to two-thirds cold, and it comes out about right. Glad it's working for you now - have fun!

Jun 20, 2008. 12:01 AMcontainer_gardener says:

Based on the video, bread making looks ridiculously easy. I haven't had much luck with yeast breads, so I try to avoid making them. This video has inspired me to try again.

Feb 29, 2008. 6:39 PMAar000n3y says:

Where did the video go? D: I was in the middle of making a loaf and now I don't know the temperature...

Mar 2, 2008. 4:05 PMMangetout (author) says:

Sorry - I noticed a glaring error in one of the metric conversions, so I took the video down and replaced it with a corrected version.

Mar 2, 2008. 5:53 PMAar000n3y says:

... Was the conversion problem with the amount of water you add?

Mar 3, 2008. 1:30 AMMangetout (author) says:

Yes - it originally said 'half a (UK)pint (about 560ml)' - which is incorrect - it now gives the correct approximate conversion of 280ml. I'm really sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you or anyone - I didn't relish the idea of pulling the video, as it had nearly 8,000 views, but it was such a dreadful error, I had no choice.

Mar 3, 2008. 2:10 PMAar000n3y says:

Ah... Well that's why my dough was more like soup! Hah, that was interesting.

May 28, 2008. 1:48 PMt.rohner says:

That's about what a "poolish" preferment looks like. You could have let it ferment for 6 to 24 hours, than add the same amount of flour , let it rise until doubled, then go on as directed in the video.

Mar 3, 2008. 2:31 PMMangetout (author) says:

I'm so sorry - I really hope it hasn't put you off trying again. But thanks for mentioning this, because it's made my decision to pull and correct the video easier to accept as necessary.

Mar 3, 2008. 3:32 PMAar000n3y says:

Oh it's fine, it made for an interesting experience much more than putting me off from trying again.

May 12, 2008. 7:12 AMmidlandslassie says:

I tried this recipe and took pics as I went along. It was such a hit, I put the photos on my facebook and had several nice comments. would def recommend.The video helped. now going to try and make chelsea buns. Thank you

Apr 25, 2008. 2:27 AManniespanny14 says:

Hi there, I'm not sure whether there was sound in this video or not because my sound system seems to be a bit screwed, but I was wondering, how hot do I turn the oven to? and how long do I pre heat the oven for? thanks, this was an awesome video, have tried to bake bread sooo many times! 21 cups of flour...(thought i'd do bulk, which failed everytime)

Apr 25, 2008. 3:10 AMMangetout (author) says:

Hi there The oven should be preheated to 180 Celsius - that's about 350F or Gas Mark 4. If you turn it on at the point when you've finished making the plait (or just after the second session of kneading, if you're not making a plaited loaf), it should get up to temperature in the half hour that your prepared loaf is rising. If you have an oven that warms up really quickly, you could turn it on halfway through the half hour rising time. Either way, the preheat time is not terribly critical - if your oven isn't warmed up (there's usually a little light that clicks off when it's up to temperature), just leave the loaf to rise for a few more minutes while the oven gets going.

Apr 9, 2008. 2:03 PMJoe Martin says:

Making this bread now, I'll post up some pictures of it in about half a hour or so.

Apr 11, 2008. 3:52 AMJoe Martin says:

Tasted great, Gonna make some today with Stilton in! Mmmmmmmmmm

Apr 10, 2008. 7:07 PMdogpoo says:

the way you plait them together is like challah. awesome recipe!

Mar 15, 2008. 6:20 PMjustlookin says:

At the end, you reference using "strong" bread flour. What is that? Also, when you say "flour", multipurpose or self rising? Thanks

Mar 15, 2008. 7:41 PMMangetout (author) says:

'Strong' flour has a higher proportion of gluten in it and is usually recommended for bread making - it will either be labelled 'strong flour' or 'bread flour'. The flour I'm using here is what we call 'plain flour' in the UK - that's the same as 'multipurpose flour' elsewhere. It's not self-rising - the yeast does all the work raising the loaf.