How to Make Bread: 7 Easy Homemade Bread Recipes

Simple recipes for beginners that will get you baking bread

Can you pass this culinary school quiz?

Learning how to make bread can feel like a bit of a daunting task. What if it doesn’t rise? Will it ever be worth the effort over just buying a nice fresh loaf? In this guide, we’ll be giving you some simple recipes from some excellent bakers that are great for beginners. We’ve included recipes that don’t require kneading, ones that you can prove overnight to save time, and even bread you can cook on the hob.

From quick flatbread to dense flavour-packed rye bread, this guide is full of recipes that make it as easy for you as possible for you to start your journey in learning how to make bread.

If you give these recipes a go and still feel like you need a helping hand, our Workshop app lets you learn from expert mentors, guiding you step-by-step from your phone or tablet whilst you bake. You can learn how to make bread at home with Sorted’s very own James Currie by your side in his Learn the Basics of Bread workshop.

Simple White Bread Recipe

A classic. This simple American-style white bread recipe might not be the most artisan-inspired, but it’s a great practical family bread. This batch makes two loaves, which is perfect for slicing one up and sticking it in the freezer for emergency toast. It’s great to offer that friend who prefers a more simple sandwich and isn’t so convinced by about seedy bread. You can also halve the ingredients if you’d just like a single loaf.

Sarah’s Basic White Loaf Recipe

Ingredients

3 ½ cups (828g) hot water

½ cup (170g) sugar

½ tbsp salt

½ cup (118ml) olive oil

8 cups (960g) bread flour

3 packets (7 ½ tsp) yeast

Mixing bowl and spoon

30cm loaf tin

Clean tea towel

Prove: the process of resting dough so that it can ferment, which allows it to rise when it’s baked.

Steps

  1. Mix water, sugar, salt, olive oil and 360g bread flour with a spoon to make a wet mixture. Add 3 packets of yeast and the rest of the flour to make a firm dough. Knead for 6-8 minutes.
  2. Cover with tea towel and prove for an hour in a warm place (until doubled in size).
  3. Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/350°F/Gas mark 4/ and grease your bread pans, flouring the sides so the bread doesn’t stick when it rises.
  4. Squash the dough down and divide into two equal loaves, and let rise until the dough has domed approximately 2.5cm (1 inch) above the pan.
  5. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 30 minutes.

Easy Flatbread Recipe

Flatbread. It could well be the easiest bread to make. It requires no oven, doesn’t have to include yeast, and is very quick and easy to make. Most every culture has a form of flatbread in their historical bread repertoire, so making it at home shouldn’t be too ambitious. It might feel a bit out of the ordinary to make bread in a frying pan, but it’s a great place to start if you feel more confident on the hob than with trusting the oven to do its thing.

Cass’ Homemade Flatbread Recipe

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour

7g dried yeast

1 tsp sugar

1 ½ tsp salt

1 ½ tbsp softened butter

300ml warm water

——

Mixing bowl and spoon

Clean tea towel

Frying pan

Steps

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Stir in the butter and add most of the water, and form into a dough.
  2. Knead the dough for 8-10 minutes until it is soft, stretchy and no longer sticky (add more flour if the mixture is too wet, a touch more water if the mixture is too dry)
  3. Put back into the mixing bowl, cover with a clean tea towel and let it rest for 45 minutes.
  4. Take a small handful of the dough, roll it into a ball and then roll it out onto a floured worktop. Try to keep it as round as possible.
  5. Fry in a frying pan with a small amount of olive oil on a medium heat, and check underneath to see when the air bubbles are just getting brown, then turn over and cook the other side until it’s browned on both sides.

Wholemeal Multiseed Bloomer Recipe

A slightly healthier option. This 50-50 wholemeal-white seeded loaf is blooming with flavour and makes one long loaf. Adding seeds to your loaf not only gives it more texture and flavour, it also makes your sandwiches more Instagram-worthy for when you post about your flashy new baking skills (if you’re into that kind of thing).

Jack’s Wholemeal Multiseed Bloomer

Ingredients

250g Wholemeal flour

250g Strong white bread flour

10g Salt

7g Dry yeast (12g fresh)

350g Room temperature

100g Mixed seeds (e.g linseed, poppy seed, sesame, pumpkin)

——

1 tray lined with baking paper

Dough scraper (or spatula)

Jug to contain 300ml water

Deep baking tray (place at the bottom of oven)

Steps

  1. Weigh out your flour and salt and weigh water at room temperature, and add dry yeast into bowl of dry ingredients (if using fresh yeast, fresh yeast in with water first). Mix the ingredients together and turn it out onto an unfloured worktop.
  2. Knead the dough for about 8 mins. Use a dough scraper (or spatula) to lift the dough from the table when needed.
  3. Dust your worktop with flour, spread the dough out and sprinkle over your seeds. Roll the dough and knead in the 75g of seeds evenly. Shape the dough into a ball dusting it with flour, and put it in your mixing bowl. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rest for between 60-90 minutes.
  4. Once your dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured worktop. Flatten it slightly into a circle and pull and fold the top of the dough down to the bottom pressing gently. Twist it 90 degrees and continue doing this about 12 times. Turn your ball of dough face side up, flatten and gently roll into a sausage shape, and place it onto your baking tray. If you get stuck with this bit, you can watch Jack’s great demonstration here. 
  5. Place shaped dough onto a baking tray lined with baking paper, brush with water and sprinkle 25g of mixed seeds onto it. Cover with a clean tea towel and prove dough for 45-60 minutes. Preheat oven to 220°C/200°C Fan/425°F/Gas mark 7 with deep tray at the bottom
  6. Boil a kettle and slash the top of the bread. Place your loaf in the oven, and fill the tray at the bottom of the oven with approximately 1cm of water. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

Homemade Bagels Recipe

Bagels are an odd one for us Brits. Why is there a hole in it? Is it a savoury doughnut? We just don’t know. But we do know that they make pretty good sandwiches, and are great fun to make. Bagels involve boiling on either side before being cooked in the oven, so be ready to get your biggest saucepan out for this recipe. The flavours we’ve included are some suggestions, but you can choose whichever flavours you’d like, or just have them plain.

Sorted’s Bagels Recipe.

Ingredients

300ml warm water

7g dried yeast

500g strong white bread flour

2 tbsp honey

1 tbsp salt

1 egg white

Flavourings

1 handful fresh chives

1 tbsp carraway seeds

1 tbsp poppy seeds

1 tbsp sesame seeds

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp sugar

Jug for water

Mixing bowl and spoon

Clean tea towel

Small circle cutter

Large saucepan

2 baking trays lined with baking paper

Cooling rack

Steps

  1. Dissolve your yeast in the warm water. Combine the flour, salt, honey and yeasty water in a mixing bowl and knead on a worktop for 5-10 minutes until it’s soft.
  2. Prove the dough for an hour in a warm place under a clean tea towel.
  3. Knead in either the cinnamon, sugar, finely chopped chives or seeds (or whatever you fancy — as long as it’s not too wet — this will slow down the cooking process). Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces on a floured worktop, and flatten into round disks approximately 2cm deep.
  4. Cut a small hole in the centre with a small cutter and move it around to widen the hole slightly. Prove for an extra 30-45 minutes on a sheet of baking paper on a tray.
  5. Heat a large pan of water to the boil and preheat your oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/350°F/Gas mark 4. Boil the bagels one or two at a time for a minute each side before taking them out and drying on a tea towel.
  6. Place on a baking tray,  brush with a beaten egg white for and bake for 25 minutes until golden. Allow to cool before cutting open.

Wholegrain Wheat English Muffins Recipe

These are English muffins with a little health-conscious twist. If you’re obsessed with making sure the bread you eat isn’t a gleaming bleached white, then this is one for you to try. This recipe makes a quite wet dough that you’ll leave overnight, so you’ll need to make sure you’ve got some reasonably deep cake cutters at hand, or you can use mason jar lids if you’ve got them. These are another bread cooked on the hob, and they’ll need a sprinkle of polenta on either side to give them that classic English muffin texture.

Alexandra’s 100% Wholegrain Wheat English Muffins

Ingredients

340g (2 ⅔ cups/12 oz) white whole wheat flour

1 1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp instant yeast

340g (1 ½ cups/12 oz) room temperature whole milk

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp oil (olive)

3 tbsp warm water

1 ¼ baking soda

Polenta for dusting

Mixing bowl

Spoon for mixing

Cooking oil spray

Cake cutters (approx. 9cm width)

Cooling rack

Steps

  1. Mix together dry ingredients in mixing bowl. Add the milk, then honey and oil. Stir until combined, and then cover the bowl with a clean tea towel. Refrigerate overnight.
  2. Remove the dough from fridge 2 hours before planning to bake. Dissolve the baking soda in warm water, and add it to the batter stirring to combine. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, heat a heavy based pan (griddle/cast iron skillet) over a medium heat. Spray the pan and inside of the cooking rings with oil and dust the inside of the rings with polenta. Place as many cooking rings as will suitably fit in the pan, and sprinkle polenta inside the rings onto the muffins. Lower the heat to low.
  4. Scoop ⅓ cup of dough into the rings (5 tbsp + 1 tsp) and sprinkle with polenta on top. Cook for 10-12 minutes, checking the bottoms of the muffins to ensure the pan isn’t too hot. Flip the muffins and cook for another 10-12 minutes.
  5. When both sides are evenly cooked, place on cooling rack. Allow rings to cool before removing the muffins from the rings, and cool for 20 minutes before splitting open.

Dark Rye Bread Recipe

This bread definitely wins the award for the brownest brown bread on this list. This no-knead, overnight recipe is vegan, and is really simple and easy to make. All you have to do is mix the ingredients, leave it to prove overnight, give it a little prove in the morning once its in a tin, and shove it in the oven. It’ll be quite dense and filling, so it’s usually eaten open-faced with a chosen spread on top.

Alexandra’s Easy Overnight Dark Rye Bread Recipe

Ingredients

400g whole spelt flour

150g rye flour

60g rolled oats

25g cocoa powder

1 ½ tsp salt

¼ tsp dry yeast (or garden pea size amount of fresh yeast)

500ml water (room temperature)

1 tsp maple syrup or honey

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Mixing bowl and spoon

Chopping board

Clean tea towel

30cm loaf tin

Baking paper

Steps

  1. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. If using fresh yeast, dissolve it into the water before adding to dry mix.
  2. Add water and syrup/honey into dry mix and stir well (the dough will be quite wet).
  3. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel (or a chopping board) and leave for 12-15 hours. Once the dough has approximately doubled in size in the morning, place it into your loaf tin lined with baking paper.
  4. Allow the dough to rest for a further 1-2 hours, covering with a clean tea towel. Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C Fan/400°F/Gas mark 6.
  5. Bake for 40-45 mins at centre shelf of the oven (until crust is hard and sounds hollow when tapped). Cool for 30 minutes before removing from pan.

Irish Soda Bread Recipe

Soda bread is an old Irish tradition, and this particular recipe almost resembles a giant scone. With the addition of raisins, this soda bread recipe isn’t entirely traditional, but it is tasty. The no-knead dough for this bread gets activated by the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda for y’all in the States) and baking powder.

Baking powder is slightly different to bicarbonate of soda in that you don’t need to mix it with both water and an acidic ingredient to activate it, you only need water. Nerdy baking science summary: this recipe includes both to give it the extra rise it needs, to stop it from tasting funny, and help it go that lovely golden brown.

Ali’s Irish Soda Bread Recipe

Ingredients

120g all-purpose flour

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

½ tsp salt

3 tbsp butter

75g raisins

180g buttermilk

Mixing bowl and spoon

Baking tray lined with baking paper

Steps

  1. Preheat oven to 190°C/170°C Fan/375°F/Gas mark 5, and line a baking tray with baking paper.
  2. Mix together your dry ingredients and mix in small chunks of butter. Stir in raisins and buttermilk until evenly distributed.
  3. Lightly flour your worktop, and turn your dough out onto it. Shape into a ball about 15cm wide, tucking in the bottom with your fingers to create a domed top.
  4. Cut a generously deep cross on the top of the dough (about halfway down).
  5. Bake for 30-40 mins (until golden brown and a tap on the bottom sounds hollow).

Share what you’ve made with us!

We would love to see what you’ve made from this recipe list, or from any of our workshops, so get sharing away and tag us on Instagram (@workshop.app), Facebook (@learnwithworkshop) and Twitter (@workshop_app) with the hashtag #madewithworkshop. We’d love to start a conversation with you and see what great bakes you’ve made at home.

If you’d like to learn more about how to make bread at home, we’ve got Master Italian Breads and Master Indian Breads workshops from the Manna from Devon Cooking School and Indian cookery chef and writer Maunika Gowardhan. In these workshops you’ll learn how to make homemade focaccia, ciabatta, naan, chapati and more from the experts in the most struggle-free way possible: with someone guiding you every step of the way.

Download the Workshop app now!