This easy homemade yeast bread recipe is what feeds our family all through the week! Within 2 hours, you’ll have a nice, fresh loaf of homemade bread on your table and ready to serve your family.
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One of the many foods from scratch we make here on our little homestead is bread. I can’t even remember the last time I bought bread from the store… it’s something we just always make at home. My girls love helping me bake bread, especially the two-year-old. As soon as she sees me get out the bread ingredients, she pulls her little stool over and asks for some of the dough to knead. I usually sprinkle a little flour on the counter and let her make her little loaf too. I hope she has good memories of doing that with me someday when she’s older and making her own family’s bread!
This easy homemade yeast bread is really pretty simple and gives a wonderful product in a fairly short amount of time. Trust me, if a busy mom of four can find time to make this bread weekly, you can too!
Table of Contents
- Ingredients for Easy Homemade Yeast Bread
- Tools for Easy Homemade Yeast Bread
- Steps to Make Homemade Yeast Bread
- Other Uses for Homemade Yeast Bread Dough
- Save this Post!
- Interested in Sourdough?
- Looking for More?
Ingredients for Easy Homemade Yeast Bread
Like many foods to cook from scratch, this recipe only involves a handful of ingredients! You’ll need:
- Yeast (dry active): This is the leavening agent for the bread. I like to buy my yeast in bulk as it’s often cheaper that way! Check your store to see if you can buy it that way too.
- Flour: Any all-purpose flour will work!
- Sugar: A little sugar helps give the bread a lovely flavor. You can use any sweetener you’d like; maple syrup and honey work just as well.
- Salt: Again, this is a flavor thing!
- Water: Warm water works best (not hot- this will kill the yeast!). You can use warm milk, too, if you’d rather! Either works.
That’s it!
Tools for Easy Homemade Yeast Bread
The early pioneers didn’t have many tools for making bread, and I don’t either! All you really need is a large bowl and a rubber spatula. Of course, there are tools you can get to make things easier like a stand mixer. But it’s definitely not necessary!
Steps to Make Homemade Yeast Bread
There are just a few steps to follow to make homemade yeast bread:
- Add all of your ingredients to a large bowl.
- Knead the dough.
- Allow it to rise.
- Punch down the dough.
- Form your dough into a loaf shape.
- Allow it to rise again.
- Bake the bread
Seven steps might seem like a lot, but each step has a purpose and isn’t very difficult. Plus, during the rise steps, you don’t have to do anything at all except wait.
Easy Homemade Yeast Bread
This easy homemade yeast bread recipe is what feeds our family all through the week! Within 2 hours, you'll have a nice, fresh loaf of homemade bread on your table and ready to serve your family.
Ingredients
- 2 cups warm water
- 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons Dry Active Yeast
- 1 Tablespoon Sugar
- 1 and 1/2 Teaspoons Salt
- 5-6 cups all purpose flour
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, add your water and yeast. Allow the yeast to sit in the water a few minutes. Do not stir.
- Add the salt and sugar.
- Next, add in the flour cup by cup, stirring it in with a rubber spatula and then moving to kneading with your hands as it gets thicker. You wan to press on the dough and fold it rather than squeeze it with your fingers. The amount of flour that you need depends on the consistency of the dough; you want the dough to be tacky but not so sticky it sticks to your fingers. After you add your 5 cups, check the consistency and add 1/2 cup at a time until it resembles the tacky but not sticky consistency.
- Return the dough to the bowl, cover with a towel, and allow it to rise until it is doubled in size. This should take about 1 hour or so.
- Punch down the dough and remove it from the bowl. Knead it a few times and form it into a long loaf shape.
- Place your loaf of dough into a greased 9x5 bread pan.
- Cover the loaf with a towel and allow the loaf to rise about 3/4 of the way up the pan. This should take about 10-15 minutes or so.
- Once it's risen, turn on your oven to 375 degrees. Place your bread into the oven while it preheats. This allows the yeast to continue to rise before it is killed in the heat. Once the oven is preheated, bake for 20 minutes.
- Brush the warm bread with butter after removing it from the oven.
- Allow the bread to cool 10 minutes before moving it to a cooling rack.
- Store in an airtight container.
Other Uses for Homemade Yeast Bread Dough
This dough is really versatile and can be used for lots of different bread-based foods. I use this dough to make homemade hamburger buns, homemade hotdog buns, breadsticks, dinner rolls, and pizza crust! It’s just a matter of forming it into different shapes after the first rise!
Save this Post!
Be sure you keep this recipe handy by saving this post to Pinterest.
Interested in Sourdough?
Another great type of bread is sourdough! If you have time, like the tang of fermented sourdough bread, and want to help your gut, try it out! Here’s my recipe for easy sourdough bread.
Looking for More?
Read some of these posts!
- TOP 5 TIPS SO YOU CAN COOK FROM SCRATCH WITHOUT A MEAL PLAN
- HOW TO START SOURDOUGH STARTER FROM SCRATCH (IT’S JUST FLOUR AND WATER!)
- SUSTAINABLE WAYS TO SPEND LESS ON GROCERIES THAT ANYONE CAN DO
- HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE FLOUR TORTILLAS WITH JUST FOUR INGREDIENTS
- QUICK AND EASY HOMEMADE PIZZA DOUGH
- HOMESTEADING SKILLS THAT CAN SAVE YOU MONEY
- FOODS TO MAKE FROM SCRATCH INSTEAD OF BUYING
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