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Slices of white bread on a wooden board.
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4.88 from 16 votes

The Easiest White Bread Recipe

The easiest recipe for homemade white bread on the planet! It's not only super easy, but it results in a perfectly soft and delicious loaf. No kneading required!
Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time40 minutes
Total Time1 hour 10 minutes
Course: Savory, Side
Cuisine: American
Diet: Vegan
Servings: 16
Calories: 125kcal

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Spray a 9x5 loaf pan with non-stick spray and line the bottom with parchment paper. 
  • Add the all purpose flour, instant yeast and salt to your mixing bowl and mix them together. 
  • Add the maple syrup to the warm (not hot) water and mix it in and then pour it over the dry ingredients.
  • Add the olive oil. 
  • Mix into a dough. Don't knead it or overmix it. Just mix until mixed.
  • Transfer to your prepared loaf pan and smooth down. 
  • Cover the loaf pan and leave the bread to rise for 20-30 minutes or until it has risen to the top of your loaf pan or just before the top.
  • Preheat the oven to 390°F (200°C). 
  • When the bread has risen place into the oven and bake for 40 minutes.  
  • Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before removing from the loaf pan and placing on a wire cooling rack to cool before slicing and serving.  

Notes

  1. Measure your flour correctly using the spoon and level method (spoon the flour into your measuring cup and level off the top with a knife, don't pack it in and don't scoop it) or weigh it on a food scale
  2. Instant yeast is also called rapid rise yeast.
  3. The maple syrup can be replaced with another kind of syrup such as agave nectar or another syrup.
  4. The water must be warm and NOT hot. Warmer than lukewarm but WARM to the touch and not hot.
  5. You can likely use any oil such as vegetable oil or canola oil instead of olive oil. 
  6. The rising time can be variable depending on the freshness of your yeast and the weather conditions. Very fresh yeast and warm weather results in a quick rise of about 20 minutes. If your yeast is older and the weather is colder this can be 30 minutes or even up to 40 minutes. Be flexible and keep an eye on it. You just want the bread to rise as high as the top of your loaf pan or close to that. 
  7. Flour Variations: You can make this with 4 cups of all purpose flour as per the recipe or with variations such as: 3 cups all purpose flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour; or 2 cups all purpose flour, 2 cups whole wheat flour; or 1 cup all purpose flour, 3 cups whole wheat flour. You can also use different flours such as brown bread flour, white whole wheat flour, whole wheat pastry flour and likely other flours too, but this would be up to you to experiment with those. 
  8. This bread is BEST on the day of baking. The second day it's better as toast and the third day it's good as toast only and that is the final day of shelf life for this bread. It is freezer friendly so if you think you'll take longer than 3 days to finish it, then slice it and freeze it and make toast straight out of the freezer. It does make very good toast!
  9. Make It Gluten-Free: We tested this with a gluten-free all purpose flour blend and it worked! So you can make this with a gluten-free baking blend in the same quantity (4 cups/500g) as all purpose flour. See the blog post for further notes about making this gluten-free.  
  10. Prep time includes 20 minutes spent rising. 

Nutrition

Serving: 1Slice | Calories: 125kcal | Carbohydrates: 24.6g | Protein: 3.5g | Fat: 1.1g | Saturated Fat: 0.1g | Sodium: 148mg | Fiber: 0.9g | Sugar: 0.6g