Easy Homemade Bread (5 Ingredients)

This easy Homemade Bread only requires 5 ingredients, including water. You don't need any special equipment. This bread recipe is so versatile because it can be baked into loaves or baguette shapes, it's up to you. The crust and crumb of this bread will make you look like a real baker!!!

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American, International, Mediterranean

Keyword Bread, Easy Bread Recipe, Homemade Bread, Yeast Bread

Prep Time 25

Cook Time 20

Rising time (2 different risings) 2 15

Total Time 3

Servings servings

Calories 155kcal

Author Sonila

Equipment

Mixing bowl
Standard Oven

Ingredients

5 cups bread flour
2.5 cups lukewarm water
1 packet Instant Yeast (Rapid Rise) about 7 grams
2 tsps sugar
1.5 tsps salt

Instructions

Separate flour, 4 cups, 0.5 cups and 0.5 cups.
Add powdered yeast on a bowl. Then add sugar and 1 cup of warm water (make sure water is not hot). Mix well until everything is dissolved. Set aside for few minutes.
Add salt to 4 cups of bread flour. Mix well. Then create a hole in the middle, the flour will look like a volcano crater.
Start pouring the yeast mix into the crater and mix slowly with the spoon. Continue doing this until you pour the whole mix.
Then add 1.5 remaining cups of water. Use a spoon to mix well. See video for details. You mix from the bottom up to be able to incorporate all the flour into the dough. In the beginning dough is sticky so that's why it's preferable to use the spoon. If you don't mind the texture, use your hands to make this mix into a dough.
Once dough is ready, it can still be a bit sticky and too soft at this point. Use 0.5 cups of flour and your hands, dust a bit of flour and fold the dough. Continue doing so until you have a soft and pliable dough that is not sticky anymore. You should be able to remove the dough from bowl at this point and hold in one hand.
Remove the dough, dust the bowl with some flour and place the dough back in. Cover with a clean kitchen towel or a tea towel if you have one. Let rise until it triples in size. It took 1.5 hrs in my kitchen to achieve this step.
Then remove dough from bowl into a clean surface where you can knead the dough.
Knead the dough from outside in and fold in the middle. See video for kneading details. Use some flour (the 2nd 0.5 cup of flour) to dust the surface.
Once you have kneading the dough for few minutes, cut in 8 equal size pieces. Estimate if you don't have a kitchen scale.
Knead each individual dough piece. Place parchment paper on a baking tray and place the dough about 2 inches apart from each other.
Let the dough rise again, cover the dough. This time I only let it rise for about 45 minutes.
Cut a straight line on top of each dough piece.
Pre-Heat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place another baking tray in the bottom rack with some water in it to create steam in the oven.
Place the bread to bake once oven is preheated. After 10 minutes of baking, lower temperature to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Let bake for another 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and handle carefully, the breads are really hot and the oven has steam inside so don't get too close to the oven door when you open it.
Place breads in a cooking rack and repeat the process if needed. I had to bake them 4 at a time so needed to bake twice.
Let the breads cool for at least 30 minutes before you cut them! Enjoy with butter, cheese, coffee or with you favorite dish:).