Have you ever wanted to make your own bread and then changed your mind when you remembered you had to be around all day while it rose, rose, and rose again? And all that kneading, and flour on the counter, and then how quickly it will be devoured and it will be like you never made it at all…
Yeah, I’ve been there. Like, weekly.
So this bread has become my go-to when I run out of store-bought bread (it’s true, I usually just buy it). I’m kinda surprised I haven’t told you about it already, given how quick it is and how lazy I am, since it’s a pretty great staple recipe. I’m sure there are homemade breads that are more “store-bought like”, or taller, or fluffier, or whatever-ier, but this quick recipe is perfect for me. It’s a great soft bread, it rolls up so you can add any fillings if you need a quick garlic cheese bread or something fancy, and it is made and risen and ready to bake in 1 hour!
Three cheers for instant yeast :)
Running out of bread has been happening way too often lately since Carl has been around for lunch more and is staunchly against something called a meal consisting of cold food of any sort. So he makes a lot of grilled cheese, which naturally means the kids want grilled cheese. Which naturally means they go through half a loaf of bread at a time, and I tend to only buy a loaf a week, so that’s just not cutting it anymore. Do you think I can remember this new state of affairs at the grocery store? Nope, I can’t. I still gasp at the price of healthy bread, pick up my loaf, and resolve to make my own more often. I guess running out of bread is good for something.
When I actually get around to baking bread, I always enjoy it – the smells, the magic of the yeast working, and the unbelievable taste of fresh warm bread with butter. And this bread means that happiness can be had much more often – no long rising, no second rising, minimal kneading, and you get 2 loaves!
I know, right? Pick up some instant quick rise yeast and try it today, and still have time for a shower. Win-win. I like this multi-grain-whole-wheat combo, but the plain white bread is also amazing – perfect with butter and a slab of cheddar cheese!
- 5½ - 6 cups all purpose flour (*see note)
- 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 pkgs instant/quick-rise yeast (4.5 tsp/16 grams)
- 2 tsp salt
- 1½ cups water
- ½ cup milk
- 2 Tbsp butter or margarine
- Grease 2 9 x 5" or 8½ x 4½" loaf pans and set aside.
- In a large bowl or the bowl of stand mixer, combine 2 cups of flour, sugar, yeast, and salt.
- Heat water, milk, and butter until very warm (approx 120 degrees F). This can be done in a small saucepan or the microwave, stirring often to avoid scalding. (I heat it until it feels hot but tolerable when I put a drip on the inside of my wrist).
- With paddle attachment or a wooden spoon, stir liquids into flour mixture. Beat well for 2 minutes at medium speed (or stir with enthusiasm!).
- Stir in another cup of flour and beat at high speed for 2 minutes.
- If using stand mixer, switch to dough hook. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
- Knead dough in mixer or on a lightly floured surface for 8-10 minutes, until smooth and elastic.
- Cover dough: let rest for 10 minutes.
- Divide dough in half and, on a lightly floured surface, roll each half into a 12x7" rectangle. Beginning at short end of each rectangle, roll up tightly as for a jelly roll. Pinch seams and ends to seal and place, seam side down, in prepared loaf pans.
- Cover loosely and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, 45-60 minutes.
- Remove cover and bake at 400 degrees F for 25-30 minutes.
- Remove from pans and cool on a wire rack.
*Recipe adapted from “Top Choice White Bread” in Favorite Brand Name Best Loved Recipes, Publications International Ltd. c) 2003
I LOVE THIS BREAD!! I found your recipe years so and it is a go to and now family recipe also. My husband was wondering if I could make it “Hawaiian style”. Can you add honey to this? Like where you would add the butter and garlic? Or on top? How much would you add?
I think on top after baking would probably be best or it will absorb into the dough since yeast loves to eat sugar :) I’ve never had Hawaiian bread though so I’m not sure how it should taste, sounds delicious!
I gave it too much sugar. What comes from reading a half dozen recipes before settling down. Makes a nice dough. My only complaint is that the prep time must be based on using a mixer, cause me and by hand–not that speedy.
I I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I’ve tried this recipe twice. I have followed it exactly.My bread won’t rise. I tried to make this because of all the glorious reports.
Hi Carole, it could be that your yeast is old and no longer active, or that your liquid is too hot, as that can kill the yeast.
Just made this and I think I have found the perfect bread recipe I have been searching for. Thanks for posting.
Wonderful! It’s great to have an easy go-to bread recipe.
Turned out very good! I did it by hand. Will definitely make again. Thanks for sharing!
Made this once a couple of years ago, and it immediately became my go-to recipe for homemade bread. I love it for how quick and easy it is, and my husband adores it for how tasty it is! Thank you for a great recipe.
The last direction to put dough into bread pan. I dont understand what you mean pin seam?? I dont have normal oven so how can I bake the dough?? Any idea?
Can I use rapid rise yeast?
Yes :)
Fortunately, I have one standard size bread loaf pan, so I made 1 loaf. I have 2 large bread loaf pans, and found a site which tells how to adjust bread recipes for large pan. Will make 2 large loaves next time. Dough raised nicely, and bread tastes very good. Thanks.
Omg! This was so easy and the result is nothing short of amazing. Thank you for sharing, only downside is me eating a hell of a lot more bread than I’d normally eat ! But simply amazing recipe
Best bread I have ever had. This was the 1st time I ever mad BREAD.
AWESOME. …AWESOME
This recipe is so easy, i really messed up in the end where you said stir in as much of the remaining flour, i dumped mine in, well i managed to salvage the situation, i just dont know if it will turn out well. Im sad but not discouraged, ill definitely try again. Thanks a lot!
Simple, tasty, just like mom’s. Really nice. It’s also cool that at the end of the day, I can decide to bake fresh bread and know that I’m not gonna be up all night.
The only thing I would say is make the font larger / put spaces between the steps. The way it is now, it’s easy to screw up the directions (and I’m in my mid-twenties, it’s not an eyesight thing).
I ended up with about a cup of flour left over :(. Is this normal? I was doing it by hand ( whew what a workout when stirring!) hope it turns out okay.
Bread making can really depend on the day’s temperature/your altitude/etc. – leftover flour should be fine, it’s adding too much that can cause less soft bread :) Hope it works out!
I just made this…eating it straight out of the oven and the kids say it’s almost as good as grandma’s!
I bought the quick rise yeast by mistake so thanks for posting this recipe so I can use it up!
Turned out great… Gave as Christmas Presents…
I love homemade Christmas presents – glad you liked it!
I have mine in a bowl rising now…It is very thick hope i did it right. I only added 5 cups total flour hope it works!
Let me know how it turns out!
Bread turned out great (I usually make bakers yeast-less beer bread since my brother in law can only tolerate brewers yeast not baker’s yeast) So this was a nice change & tasted great!
Have you / can you freeze the loaf after shaping to bake later? My mother always did this and I’m not sure at what point she wrapped it in plastic wrap and froze it! Thanks
I’m not sure when to freeze it – I would probably do it after letting it rise fully, since I’m not sure how the quick-rise yeast would do with rising after thawing. Let me know if you try it!
Way late to this, but I’m giving refrigerating the dough a whirl pre-rise; will update when I see how it goes…
So this is my first time making bread and I have a few questions. Can I use just whole wheat flour or should I do a combination of whole wheat and all purpose? Do I have to roll it out? I don’t have a rolling pin. Could I use my stone ware bar pan for a free form loaf or should I stick with my bread pans? I’d really appreciate the feed back and feel free to give tips.
Hi Jessica! You should definitely use a mix of flours, no more than half whole wheat in this recipe or you’ll end up with a much denser loaf and this loaf is already fairly dense due to the quick rise time. If you don’t have a rolling pin I’ve often substituted a wine bottle for the job! Rolling it out eliminates air bubbles which helps prevent holes in the loaf once it’s baked, so I would definitely find something around your house to use as a rolling pin. I’m not familiar with the stoneware pan you’re talking about, but if it’s the same size is should work just fine, but otherwise stick to the bread pans or your bread will likely spread more and not rise as tall. The biggest thing is to make sure you use warm enough water and the bit of sugar, since it’s those two things that activate the yeast and make it work. Hope that helps, let me know how it goes!!
I found this recipe in a desperate search for a quick rise bread; I did not read the directions all the way through, however. Good news though, it turned out fantastic!! I combined all of the dry ingredients (with a whisk as I don’t have a sifter), heated the liquid, combined it all by hand, then let it rise in a ceramic bowl, looley covered in plastic. Also, I do not own loaf pans, so they were free formed and put on prepared cookie sheets. The results were two crusty loaves of bread…I will never buy bread again! ( i hope LOL)
So glad it worked! This is definitely a more forgiving recipe than others I’ve worked with for bread. I always say I’ll never buy bread again too…but sometimes it’s just so easy :)
Also, to let you know, It didn’t rise as high as the traditional yeast bread I bake, but that may just have been the yeast as I just bought the quick rise yeast for this recipe. Flavorwise though, while some of the slow rise bread I have baked may have been a bit more complex in its taste, I found the flavor of this recipe to be quite good, and my girlfriend absolutely did too. She loves homemade bread as I do, so when I make it, the better it is the shorter life it has and this batch was not around for very long lol!
Thanks so much for the feedback! You’re right, this isn’t as tall as regular yeast bread, so I was worried it would be too dense – I was glad that’s not the case at all!
Hey, I just wanted to get back to you and say that I tried this bread recipe, and oh was it good. I made two loaves and they were gone in about a day and a half. Nice and firm and not crumbly. what a joy! Great recipe, thanks!
What a pretty loaf of bread and is anything more welcoming than visiting a house with the aroma of fresh bread? I think not. :)
I totally agree…such an amazing smell!
I absolutely love to bake homemade bread! It’s always so good and the aroma around the house is absolutely wonderfull, but one hour bread? Wow, I’ll be trying this soon, and thanks for the recipe!
The smell of homemade bread baking is one of my favourites! Let me know how you like it – if you bake bread regularly I’d love to hear how it compares to traditional rising breads!
I’m going to be trying this the next time I need bread for dinner. I made a beer bread not too long ago and that also takes an hour. I’m a fan of these super easy breads because I don’t like to wait on anything really! :)
Happy Holidays to you!! xo
I LOVE it! Nothing beats a homemade bread. Thank you for sharing! How are you? How is your little one? Have a wonderful weekend! xoxo
Wow! That looks way too perfect not to have been slaved over! I love it :)
Yum! Great bread recipe and it looks so soft! I just love bread, but like you I hate waiting for it to rise!!! I have to try your bread!
This is freaking fabulous. You rock the bread and whateverier. That made me howl with laughter.
Bread that is ready to be baked in an hour?! I will be trying this!
I smell fresh bread on Christmas morning. :-)
Very cute.. that every one is having grilled cheese.