My homemade white bread loaf recipe : quick and simple

by William Mcmurray

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone seems to be making their own bread ! So here is my personal recipe, designed to usurp the less time possible while working from home :)

Ingredients

  • 4 cups of bread flour*
  • 3 teaspoons of sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • 2 teaspoons of quick rise yeast
  • 1 1/2 cups of warm water

Instructions

  1. Heat up your oven at lowest setting for about 2 minute (just to make it warmer, not hot). Then turn off the oven, and turn on the light inside the oven.
  2. Combine all the dry ingredients. Add the warm water and mix everything with a wooden spoon until a ball starts forming.
  3. On a floured surface, knead the dough until it become a bit elastic without being too sticky (about 7 minutes). Basically, until you feel like the dough is nicely uniform and it's consistency won't evolve any further.
  4. Distribute the dough equally inside a lightly oiled loaf pan and place the pan at the bottom-center of the oven. To prevent the dough from drying, you may place a recipient containing steaming hot water in the oven or a wet warm cloth on top of the pan. Let the bread rise for about 1h20.
  5. Remove the water recipient (or the wet cloth) from the oven. Set the oven to 350 °F and let it bake for 50 minutes (no pre-eating required).
  6. Let it cool for at least 20 minutes (so it's easier to slice). I like to roll the bread on it's side in the pan while cooling, this way the crust wont get softened by the steam coming out of the bread.

* Bread flour basically contain more gluten than all-purpose flour. This accelerates the raising process and will hold your bread together more (so you can make thiner slices without it breaking). All-purpose flour will also work, but you might have to wait longer during the raising process and the result may not be as perfect as it would with bread flour.