Baking your own bread may sound complicated, but with a few basic ingredients and some patience you can get surprisingly far. In this blog we take you step by step: from weighing flour and water to kneading, proofing and baking a light loaf with a beautiful golden-brown crust.

You don't need a professional bakery – just an oven, a mixer with dough hooks and a little attention to the process. We not only explain what you need to do, but also why you do it. That way you understand what happens during kneading (gluten formation), why proofing is so important and how to prevent your bread from sticking to the pan.

Whether this is your very first loaf or a new attempt after a less successful result: with this foundation you’ll learn how to bake a sturdy, airy and flavorful loaf at home.

Gather everything you need:

Let’s check if you have everything:

• oven
• oven gloves or two towels
• mixer with dough hooks
• mixing bowl
• scale
• oil, any kind (but not motor oil)
• optional and handy: a rolling pin

What do you need?

Great, we have the tools, now let’s see if we have all the ingredients:

• wheat flour or all-purpose flour.  Order your flour here in our webshop. 
• salt
• a sachet of yeast
• water

Weighing

Now it gets a bit tricky because we don’t know how big your loaf pan is. The capacity of your pan determines how much dough you need to make. You know what, we’ll guess, because almost all pan sizes are roughly the same.

We’ll take 500 grams of flour.

First we’ll weigh the ingredients and then combine them in the mixing bowl.

• Turn on your scale.
• Place your mixing bowl on the scale.
• Press the tare button, now your scale is back to 0 grams.
• You need to weigh 7.5 grams of salt now, but that doesn’t work (very well) with a kitchen scale. It can do 7 or 8 grams. The difference isn’t huge, so weigh 8 grams this time.
• Press the tare button again, now your scale is back to 0 grams.
• Turn on the cold tap and add a very small amount of warm water to it. The water should not feel cold but tepid is too warm.
• Fill a measuring jug or another vessel that you can easily pour from and let enough water run from the tap into it.
• Check: is the mixing bowl still on the scale and is the scale still at 0 grams?
• Now pour exactly 270 grams of water into the mixing bowl.
• Press the tare button again, the scale is back to 0 grams.
• Now add exactly 500 grams of flour.
• Open a sachet of yeast and let it fall onto the flour (not into the water). We assume you have a 7 gram sachet of yeast (that’s a bit too much, it should have been 5 grams ideally, but a bit too much is not a big deal). If you have an 11 gram sachet that is really too much, then just add half.
• Everything is now in your mixing bowl.

Kneading

All the ingredients are now in the mixing bowl, take the mixer and insert the dough hooks (not the beaters for whipping cream but the sturdier type).

Set the mixer to the lowest speed and keep it at that speed for the entire kneading process.

Your mixer now not only combines the ingredients, but without you knowing it a very complex process takes place called the formation of gluten. Without those gluten strands you won’t get a light loaf. The only way to "make" those gluten strands is to knead the dough for a long time. The absolute minimum is six minutes, but it’s better to continue up to ten minutes. Don’t knead much longer than that because you’ll break the gluten.

If you weighed the water and flour exactly then your dough will be just wet enough. If you still find the dough too dry you can add 5 or 10 grams of water (a tablespoon is about 5 grams), but certainly not more. If you find the dough a bit too wet, add a small amount of flour (a tablespoon).

You have a tendency to approach the dough with the mixer from the outside of the dough ball and try to go through it. That is not the best method. Always insert your mixer with the dough hooks at the top center of the dough ball and try to keep it there as long as possible. At some point the dough will be pushed away, or your mixer will, and then you need to insert it again at the top center. If your mixer starts to smell odd or gets very hot, stop. Because a mixer can just — just barely — produce the force to knead dough.

Letting it rise

So, you’ve now made a dough. The yeast in the dough must now do its work, the dough must rise. That takes time. Allow 45 minutes to an hour. For this first rise it’s not extremely precise. A good indication is when the dough has about doubled in volume from where you started.

What is important is to place the bowl with the dough in a warm place and cover it with a cloth. Yeast likes that warmth and the dough will rise well. If the dough is in a cold place it will take longer for the dough to double in volume. Give the dough that time then. The rising can take about 1.5 hours.

That cloth over the mixing bowl ensures the dough doesn't dry out on top. That is very important. Lightly misting the top of the dough with a spray bottle is wise.

Flattening and rolling the dough on the counter

After the dough has doubled in volume it’s time to "shape" the dough, this is also called "making up".

Before we place the dough in the loaf pan we must first grease it. We do this to ensure the bread can slide out after baking and doesn’t remain stuck.

We assume a rectangular loaf pan, for example a loaf tin but a bread pan is even better. We use a pan that is 28 cm long, 10 cm wide and 8.5 cm high, but you can of course bake bread in any pan.

Take the bottle of oil, any kind will do — sunflower oil, olive oil, vegetable oil, liquid butter is also fine — and let a few drops fall into the pan. Better a little too much than too little (as a beginner, later you’ll use as little as possible as long as it doesn’t stick). Wipe the oil around the pan with your index finger or index finger together with your middle finger. Make sure the oil is not only on the bottom but also on the sides. Spread it generously. Because if you forget a spot, the bread will stick to the pan there after baking.

And yes, even a pan with a non-stick coating we also grease, just do it.

Also put a few drops on a clean part of the counter where we'll flatten the dough later. Spread the oil over an area of about 30 by 30 centimetres. Is there still oil on your fingers or hands? Great, just leave it, then the dough won't stick to them so much.

Now turn the dough out of the bowl onto the counter that you have very lightly greased with oil. Press the dough down a bit. If you have a rolling pin, roll the dough into a roughly square shape that is just a little longer than your loaf pan. If your pan is for example 25 cm the sheet should be just a bit longer, say 27 cm. It’s not very exact as long as it’s a little larger than the pan, certainly not smaller. The dough sheet should be roughly the same thickness all over.

Now you need to roll that sheet up. Start "at the top", that is the side "away from you". Fold it over a bit so that a start of a roll forms. Continue until the dough is completely rolled up. Roll the dough a little along the counter. You will now see that the "seam" is on the underside. Roll the dough roll back so the seam is again underneath. Pick up the roll and place it seam-side down in the loaf pan.

Final proof

The dough must now rise in the loaf pan. Again place it in a as warm a place as possible^[1]. Cover it with a cloth and ensure the dough does not dry out. A little misting with the spray bottle is a sensible move. The total rising time is about 60 minutes but that greatly depends on the dough temperature and the ambient temperature. If the dough piece has approximately doubled in size since you placed it in the pan it should be baked.

Preheat the oven

While the dough is still rising switch the oven on. Preferably use top and bottom heat and not fan (convection) as that often causes local burning on parts of the bread. How hot the oven should be is hard to say because the set temperature can differ considerably from the actual temperature.

Play it safe the first time and set it to 190° Celsius. If the bread doesn't get a nice colour on top next time increase the temperature by 10° and repeat this increase each next time until the crust colours nicely at the end of the baking time.

Make sure an oven rack is in the oven. Make sure the top of the loaf pan is at the middle height of the oven. In most ovens you then need to place the rack on the lower notch. If that is still too high (in ovens that are not tall) then put the rack on the bottom of the oven, don’t worry — I baked bread for years in a small oven like that. If you place the rack on the bottom of the oven, turn it over (top becomes bottom), then the "rounded" side faces up and that gives a little extra space under the pan so the heat from the bottom can flow around the pan more easily.

Dough in the oven

When the dough has risen sufficiently, and feel free to carefully lift the cloth to check, that is perfectly fine, you should put it in the preheated oven. The dough will normally have risen well after about 50 to 70 minutes and be about twice as large as when you put it in the pan. Put the loaf pan into the oven very carefully. If you push too hard there is a chance the risen dough will collapse. Set the timer to 45 minutes and bake the dough in the oven.

Remove from oven and cool

If all goes well you’ll smell wonderful aromas from your oven after about 20–25 minutes. When the time is up, use your oven gloves to take the pan out of the oven and turn it over above the cooling rack. If all is well it will slide out easily. Whatever happens, never use a knife to remove a stuck bake from its pan. That means you didn’t grease it well enough. In that case leave the bread in the pan. The crust will then become quite moist and after about half an hour or so you can use a silicone dough scraper or other soft tool to pry the crust loose from the pan.

This is just one bread recipe we chose for inspiration. On YouTube you can find countless recipes with explanations so you can follow an instruction with images.

Enjoy your meal!

How do you bake your first loaf? Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Why do I have to knead the dough so long?

During kneading gluten is formed. These provide elasticity and structure to the dough. Without sufficient kneading you get a compact and heavy loaf. A minimum of 6 minutes of kneading is necessary, 8–10 minutes is often ideal.

2. What if my dough is too wet or too dry?

If the dough is too dry, add small amounts of water (about 5 grams at a time). If it’s too wet, add a little flour. Always work in small steps to maintain the right balance.

3. How do I know if my dough has risen enough?

A good rule of thumb is that the dough has approximately doubled in volume. This applies both to the first rise in the bowl and to the final proof in the pan. Unsure? Gently press your finger into the dough: if it springs back slowly, it’s ready for the oven.

4. Can I bake this bread with fan (convection) mode?

You can, but top-and-bottom heat usually gives a more even result. Fan mode can cause the top to brown faster or even burn. If you do use fan mode, reduce the temperature by about 10–15°C.

5. Why do I need to grease even a non-stick pan?

Because dough expands during baking and sugars caramelize, it can still stick. A thin layer of oil ensures your bread slides out of the pan easily after baking and prevents damage to the crust.