Simple Homemade Yeast Bread

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Here’s a simple homemade yeast bread recipe using basic ingredients which is great for beginners because your bread machine does the mixing and proofing for you.

If you are new to breadmaking and are a little intimidated by sourdough bread, then this recipe is for you. You’ll get the benefits of cooking and eating from scratch as well as reducing the amount of chemicals you consume.

Using home appliances to help save time is just fine, plus I’m sure our ancestors would have jumped at the chance to use our modern day kitchenware. This is why I like to use the bread machine to do the majority of the work for this yeast bread when I don’t have time to make sourdough. I prefer the texture of homemade bread when it’s cooked in the oven over letting it cook in my bread machine, so I use the dough setting to prep and rise the dough and then I bake it in the oven.

Why make your own bread?

1. Ingredients – you can choose what ingredients go into your bread. Store bought bread contains additives, preservatives, and a lot of sugar
2. Cost – making your own bread uses basic ingredients which you can buy in bulk
3. Taste – it just tastes better and is better for your health
4. Ease – it may look like a lot of steps to make this bread, but I break it down for you step by step

How to store homemade bread?

Homemade bread doesn’t have a very long shelf life because it doesn’t contain the chemicals needed for preservation. You can keep it on the counter in a bag for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. You can also freeze your bread and the easiest way I found is to slice it, put it in the freezer bag, then take out what you want as needed. Let your slices come to room temperature or toast it right from the freezer. I love these lined bread bags to keep my bread on the counter or in the fridge, but to freeze my bread I use these freezer bags.

What you need to make this Simple homemade yeast bread

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm water, between 115-120 degrees
• 1/2 cup cold milk
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 T. butter, room temperature
• 6 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp salt

Tools

• bread machine – you can do the kneading by hand, but the idea with this recipe is to use a bread machine to free up some of your time
• measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• 2 bread pans

Instructions

To your bread machine pan add water and milk. You want the water/milk mix to be between 110-120 degrees. You can heat the water/milk together to get to that range, or use hot water and add cold milk to bring it down to somewhere between 110-120.

Add 1/4 cup sugar, and 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast to the bread pan. Let this rest for about 10 minutes until the yeast floats and looks foamy.

Add 1/4 cup honey, 2 T. room temperature butter, and 6 cups all purpose flour. I prefer to use unbleached flour because it is less processed than bleached flour. Make a well in the center of the flour and add your salt.

Return your pan to the bread machine, lock it in, close the lid, and select the dough setting on your bread machine. It takes 1 hour 30 minutes on my machine. During the mixing process I have to help my machine along by using a wooden spoon to scrape the sides. You may have to do this with yours as well.

Once the dough cycle is complete, remove the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Split the dough into 2 parts. Flatten each piece with your hands into a 5 x 9 rectangle, roll and tuck the ends so it looks like a loaf. Put each loaf into a butter greased bread pan. Cover with a tea towel and let rise for about 1 hour until it rises over the edge of the pan.

For decoration I use a razor blade to make a slit on the top of the dough just before baking.

To bake your loaves, put them into a 350 degree oven for about 30-35 minutes until it reaches 190-200 degrees internal temperature. Remove from the oven and rub a stick of butter all over the top of your bread. This will keep the crust soft once cooled.

Let it cool in the pan about 30 minutes. Remove the bread from the pans and put on a drying rack. Cool completely before cutting and before storing in your bread bags.

If you are looking to do more “from scratch” cooking but aren’t sure how or where to start, then start with making homemade yeast bread. It’s a simple switch you can make towards feeding your family with wholesome, delicious, less processed foods. Enjoy!