Delicious White Bread You Can Actually Make At Home

Add the following ingredients to a large bowl / the bowl of your stand mixer and mix until combined (not a single lump of flour left):

• 1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon (1.6g) instant (or rapid-rise) yeast
• 1 tablespoon (21g) honey
• 1-1/4 cup (325g) room temperature water

Congrats! You’ve just made a starter. The mixture is going to be a goopy, sticky, pourable mess. And it’s going to make your bread taste great. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and move on.

• 2 cups (280g) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon (1.6g) instant (or rapid-rise) yeast

Now, starting with the flour, create a blanket over the top of your starter. Don’t stir this in. Cover your starter with a blanket of flour and yeast. >> A blan-ket. <<

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a tea towel, and let it sit at room temperature for an hour or so. If you peak into the bowl you will see the sponge start to bubble up through the blanket of flour and yeast. That’s good. It means the yeast is working hard to create some delicious flavor out of all that white flour and honey.

At this point you can move on with the recipe, or stick the bowl in the fridge overnight and finish things off in the morning (just let it warm up for a minute after you take it out of the fridge).

If you are using a stand mixer:

Congrats! You’re going to let the machine do the heavy lifting.

Using the dough hook, mix the dough on low for 2 minutes, just until a rough dough starts to form. Stop the mixer and sprinkle on:

• 1-1/2 teaspoons (10g) table salt

Turn the mixer back on and mix on medium-low for about 10 minutes, until the dough becomes cohesive and mostly clears the sides of the bowl (the bottom may still be sticky, that’s OK). Fair warning: if you have a Kitchen Aid it might start to “walk” across your counter during this process, so keep an eye on it.

If you are kneading the dough by hand:

In this choose-your-own-adventure of a recipe, you’ve chosen the hard (but oh, so rewarding) way.

Sprinkle on the salt at the beginning of the hand-mixing process.

• 1-1/2 teaspoons (10g) table salt

Using a heavy-duty spoon, mix the dough in the bowl until it becomes cohesive enough that you can dump it out onto the counter. Sprinkle a small amount of flour onto your counter, turn the dough out, and knead by hand for about 5 minutes (push the dough away from you using the palms of your hands; fold it back over on itself; give it a turn; repeat). You may need to add more flour.

Cover the dough with sprayed plastic wrap or a damp tea-towel and let it rest for 15 minutes. Have a coffee. Uncover the dough and knead it for another 5 minutes or until it becomes smooth and only a bit tacky.

After the dough is mixed:

Oil or spray a medium sized bowl with your favorite cooking oil/spray and place the dough inside. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp tea-towel, and let the dough rise somewhere warm anywhere from 1 to 2 hours, or until doubled in size.*

*Doubled in size is the key to this and all bread recipes. The shortest rise time is an estimate and is based on the “ideal condition” that you keep your kitchen between 75-80° Fahrenheit (24-26° Celsius), which I do not.

Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and shape it into a boule by picking up the edges of the dough one after another and gently pulling them inward just past the mid-point of the dough (think of making a pinwheel). Turn the dough over so the bottom is now the top. You can perfect the shape by gently nudging, dragging, and turning the dough with your palms, but don’t be too type-A about this, we are making rustic bread here.

Line either a medium cast-iron pan (ideal) or a baking sheet (works great) with silpat or parchment paper and set the dough on the liner. Loosely cover the dough with sprayed plastic wrap or a damp tea-towel and let rise until almost doubled in size, 30 minutes to 1 hour. During this time, preheat your oven to 425° Fahrenheit (220° Celsius).

Brush the dough with water, and slash an “X” across the top with a small, sharp, knife (both of these things will help the bread to rise in the oven).

Put the bread in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes. It will have a firm crust and sound hollow when it’s done (seriously, knock on it, you’ll see). Cool completely on a wire rack.