Basic Bread Recipe

After a lot (a lot) of trial and error, I've come up with a good white bread recipe. It's easy to make and doesn't take a million hours to make. I am going to experiment from this basic recipe, but was excited to share it.

Basic Bread Recipe

1 package (2 ¼ tsp.) active dry yeast
¼ C. warm water
2 C. warm water
2 tbs. olive oil
2 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. salt
6 C. all purpose flour


Add yeast to ¼ C. warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer. Let stand a few minutes and stir. Combine 2 C. warm water, olive oil, sugar and salt to another bowl, stir to combine. Add 6 cups flour to mixer bowl then add remaining ingredients. Mix until dough forms, it will be sticky.

Turn out into a greased bowl, cover with a towel and let rise for 1½ hours. Dough should have doubled in bulk. Punch down dough and shape into loaves. Let rise again for another 45 minutes. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 35 minutes or until loaves are golden brown.

Turn oven off, remove loaves from their pans and let cool directly on the oven rack.

This recipe made 2 standard sized loaves of bread.