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This bread machine bread recipe is the foolproof method for getting perfect white bread every time! Just dump in all the ingredients and let the bread maker do all the work! With about 5 minutes of minimal effort you can have soft, warm bread in just a couple of hours!
The Best Bread Machine Bread Recipe
My good friend Abby makes THE BEST bread. A few years ago I convinced her to let me in on her secret, and to my surprise, she simply stated that the secret is that she uses her bread machine. Seriously!? I honestly didn’t believe her at first, because bread machine bread just isn’t usually good (compared to the classic, manual-rising, oven-baked variety)! I’ve attempted making bread in a bread machine at least a dozen times and it always came out dry and hard, and just not quite right. Well, she proved me wrong. Now making bread/dough in the bread machine is my VERY favorite way to make homemade bread. Trust me, you are going to love how easy and delicious this recipe is!
The Secret to Bread Maker Bread
Bread machines are SO convenient. You just put everything right in, push go, and they do all the work for you! The mixing, the kneading, the rising, the baking – everything! Where a bread machine falls short is in the “baking” part. When it comes to baking bread, the bread machine is not your friend. So what is to be done? Shhh.. I’m going to let you in on the secret. Here’s what you do: Let the bread machine do all the mixing, kneading, and rising. Then dump the dough in a bread pan, put it in a COLD oven (no preheating, YAY!), turn the oven on and bake. It’s THAT easy. Just these few little steps make a world of difference!
How to Make Bread using a Bread Machine (Step by Step)
- First, place 1 cup VERY hot water, 1 egg, 4 tablespoons cold butter, ¼ cup sugar, and 1 ¼ teaspoons salt in the bread machine. No need to mix or anything, just put it all straight in.
- Next, Add 3 cups flour directly to the bread maker. Make a small well in the flour with your hand and add yeast to the well.
- Set bread machine to “dough” for 90 minutes (it should default to 1 hour 30 minutes) and press “start”.
- When your dough is finished, pour it straight into a greased bread pan. If you want to make it look pretty, you can turn it so a smooth side is facing up. Then just tuck down any unruly edges.
- Place the bread pan in the COLD oven. No preheating necessary!
- Set temperature to 350-degrees and set timer for 30 minutes. The bread will rise and bake in this time.
- Remove baked bread from the oven and remove quickly from pan. Place on a cooling rack and brush with butter. Cover with a towel or place in a plastic Ziplock bag to keep from drying out.
What Bread Maker is Best?
Honestly, it doesn’t really matter what kind of bread machine you have. We got the cheapest bread maker on Amazon that had decent reviews. I think it was under $100. Any basic bread maker will do the trick. Just make sure it has a “dough” option so it will stop once the dough is done.
Adapting to Make More Bread Machine Recipes:
We have used this exact dough recipe for all sorts of recipes. Sometimes you have to knead it with some flour to get the right consistency depending on what you are making, but it works like a charm in these recipes:
Gino’s Deep Dish Pizza
Homemade Cinnamon Rolls
Parmesan Pull Apart Bread
Pani Popo (Samoan Coconut Rolls)
BBQ Cilantro Pizza
Quick and Easy Calzones
Monkey Bread
Pesto Rolls
Fry Bread
Breadsticks
Read more: 35+ Dinner Ideas
Frequently Asked Questions
Bread machines usually call for ‘bread flour’. The main difference between bread flour and all-purpose flour is the gluten content (bread flour has more gluten). All-purpose flour is absolutely fine to use! Your loaf of bread may not rise as spectacularly as it would with the bread flour, but there really isn’t much of a difference.
YES! Not only is it cheaper, but you know exactly what is going into it! No mystery ingredients in your sandwich bread.
Broken down, the savings look like this: The average cost of a loaf of basic white bread is around $4 (more or less), making it yourself costs about $1.
(It also tastes better!)
Nope! Just make sure you are using a quick-rise yeast for it to work best. In this recipe, we just use all-purpose flour. No need to spend extra getting special ingredients.
Bread Machine Bread
Video
Equipment
- Bread Machine
Ingredients
- 1 cup water (very hot)
- 1 egg
- 4 tablespoons butter (cold- not softened)
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
- 3 cups flour
- 1 tablespoon quick-rise yeast
Instructions
- Place hot water, egg, butter, sugar, and salt in bread machine.
- Add 3 cups flour. Make a small well in the flour and add yeast.
- Set bread machine to "dough" for 90 minutes (1 hour 30 minutes) and start.
- When dough is finished. Pour directly into a greased bread pan. If needed, gently turn the bread or tuck in the edges so the top is smooth (it's ok if it is sticky).
- Place bread in COLD oven and set oven to 350 degrees. Set timer for 30 minutes.
- When finished baking, remove from oven and carefully remove bread from the pan.
- Place on a baking rack to cool and brush the top with butter. Place a towel over the bread or place in a plastic Ziplock bag to keep from drying out.
- Serve immediately or place in a plastic Ziplock bag to keep from drying out.
If Making Rolls:
- Remove dough from bread machine and place on a floured surface.
- Knead in a little flour if dough is too sticky to handle.
- Divide dough into 12 equal pieces. Fold and pinch into dough balls and place in a greased 9×13 glass baking dish.
- Place in a COLD oven and set to 350 degrees. Set timer for 25 minutes.
- Remove rolls from oven and brush with butter.
Notes
- using as a crust to spread with jams, from raspberry to fig to cherry, and drizzled with honey
- toasting and slathering with garlic and cheese, and pairing with soups, salads, and vegetables
- your favorite new sandwich
- French toast, a morning staple
- and finally, the classic bread and butter, not to be overlooked.
This is a follow up review because the recipe is fantastic, and I’ve learned that the dough is good for a variety of things. It can be used to make wonderful cinnamon rolls, hamburger buns, and dinner rolls. The leftover bread (if there is any) can be frozen and used later as bread crumbs. I chopped some up last week, mixed it with melted butter, and toasted it as a topping for homemade mac and cheese. Wow! I’m not a gifted cook, just a functional one, so I really appreciate simple recipes that yield stellar results. This recipe does that in spades.
Thanks so much for the follow up review! It is such an easy recipe that is so versatile, so glad you are finding so many ways to use it!
Absolutely obsessed with this bread. Tried it as rolls for the first time tonight. I want to do them for Thanksgiving, but there is so little time for everything. Is it possible to make the dough the day before? Or, at least, hours before? Thank you! Lori
If you want to make them a day ahead I would refrigerate the dough right away so you don’t get a second rise yet. Day of, I would take it out of the fridge, portion and shape them, and allow to rise a bit before baking. The dough will be cold when you take it out of the fridge so you will definitely want to let them rise before even putting them in a cold oven. Hope this makes sense!
Any chance I can just undercook them the day before and finish them off right before dinner?
I haven’t tried that before. I’m not sure if they will deflate if you do that. You are probably better off just cooking them all the way, refrigerating them and then just putting them back in the oven to warm. hopefully this helps!
I’m not usually the one to take the time to review recipes but I just had to give it a 5 stars! Ive made many bread recipes but this one is so simple… I threw the ingredients in the way it is called for except I went by a review I saw saying to cut the water to 3/4 and that worked very well. I let my machine do the dough cycle then since it’s kind of a small amount of dough I used a 4 well mini loaf pan …and it filled them nicely..baked on 350 for 15 minutes or so after letting the dough rest for 30 minutes in closed microwave. The crumb is lovely..think nature’s own butter bread soft… I’ve never found one to do that and I guess simplicity is the answer. thank you!!
Wow thank you so much for taking the time to comment and leave this great review! I love this recipe too for all the reasons you said, it’s just SO easy and it turns out perfectly every time. So glad you liked it!
I’m confused – you use the oven, not the bread machine to bake it? That might be a dumb question, but I’ve never made bread before & I just got a bread machine.
Thanks!
Yes, we have found this is the best method! The bread machine does all the rising and kneading prep, but you just can’t beat baking it in the oven!
Thank you!
I rarely post comments to recipes. But this is an exception. I have been searching for a bread loaf that is reminiscent of yeast rolls. And this is it in spades. So yummy.
I absolutely love this bread and have posted so before. I want to add a couple of hints you may want to try that work really well for me. 1, Use 3 /4 cup water. Dough is easier to handle. 2. Do you know if you wait 15 to 30 minutes to put your baked goods (no matter what they are) in the oven.
For this bread I wait 30 minutes. I didn’t think to try it with this recipe until a couple of weeks age. It raises higher and the texture is awesome. Try it!!!
I am never buying bread again. This is so much better and extremely easy to make. I took a warm loaf over to my parents, and my mom is going to dig out her old bread maker so she can start making it. Used regular yeast because I had no quick rise yeast, and it worked just fine. Followed rest of the recipe as written. I am grateful to have found this recipe. Thank you for it.
Hi Dawn – I am so glad you love this recipe! Thanks for coming back to leave such a nice comment. I 100% agree with you. I make this bread all the time and it is just SO easy. Definitely keep those bread machines close by!
What temperature should the hot water be for your bread machine bread recipe?
Around 80 degrees F!
It’s the best bread recipe, I’ve used so far, I first time making didn’t have bread flour, looked for substitute ingredient ( vital wheat gluten) to make bread flour, didn’t have that looked farther to find substitute for vital wheat gluten., I had several of those to choose from. Used it,
Still with using psyllium husk, and water. The first bread was heavier, tasting, still just looked like wheat bread, taste was good! .
Dinner rolls were amazing.
I took 1 bread dough, split into 2 bread pans. Didn’t have another bread pan. Still wonderful. And was able to share double !
Can this be frozen? To make ahead.?has anyone tried?
It was a little bit doughy when I took it out of the oven and cut a piece off. Putting it back in for a little longer.
Doesn’t seem to have enough flour in the recipe. The dough is very loose and sticky. I couldn’t even get it out of the machine pan without adding major amounts of flour… about 1/2 cup. Of course then it didn’t rise at all after that so it’s a flop. I’ve used several recipes so I don’t know what the problem is.
The first time didn’t turn out very well. The dough was very wet and sticky. I tried again but added about 1/2 cup of flour with great success. It’s probably the best homemade bread I’ve made.
We love this recipe. The first three times we made it, it worked perfectly. Since then, it seems to be rising too quickly and over proofing in the bread machine (and seems too sticky). We can’t figure out what’s going on, though we’ve tried taking it out before 90 minutes and adding extra flour so it’s less sticky. Any thoughts?
Oh, weird! Has the weather changed dramatically where you live recently? Or do you live at a high altitude?
It’s been an unusually wet winter, but I don’t think the weather’s really changed since I started baking the bread. Our bread machine dough cycle is about 2.5 hours, but I’ve been taking it out after 90 minutes (sometimes less to try to stop it from rising too much). I’ll try to reduce the water a bit and see what happens. It’s been delicious every time, even when it doesn’t seem quite right.
i found this recipe in January. I have made minimum 10 loaves. My husband and I LOVE this recipe! i have given loves to friends and family and they have enjoyed it as well. i have made the bread as directed and made a mixture of butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar, pressed the bread out and spread the combination and rolled the bread and baked according to directions. YUMMY!!!
This is the best bread machine recipe I have tried so far. The bread turned out perfectly. I can’t wait to try the cinnamon rolls. This is my new go-to recipe.
Delicious, quick never fail bread. Easiest bread I have ever made and so delightful to eat!
Made this bread exactly as it instructs. I expected disaster because of how quick and easy it is but to my surprise it was perfect! It is the only bread I bake now. . . And sometimes at the last minute! Thank you for such a delicious and quick bread re ipe.
Just made this and cut off a piece. It needs to bake longer than the 30 minutes (from a cold oven). What did I do wrong?
Do you live at a particularly high elevation? You may need to make some baking adjustments if so.
Best bread machine bread ever!
I’ve been making this bread quite a while and I really love it! It’s so fast and easy
to make and turns out great. To make it even faster and easier I put together several packets of pre-measured dry ingredients (except the yeast), and place the salt and sugar in a separate little bag which I then place in a larger bag with the 3 cups of flour. I even
cut up the 4 tablespoons of butter and keep it in a baggy in the fridge. Talk about fast!
Hello, I made your delicious bread loaf. The texture is so perfect, but mine was a tad salty. I was wondering if I was supposed to use unsalted butter?
You certainly can use unsalted butter if you found your loaf too salty!
Best bread recipe I’ve tried in years! So delicious! And easy!