Maybe you’ve made ice cream in a bag with your kids, but did you know you can make bread in a bag too? You can! It’s a fun and simple method that results in a soft, sandwich-style loaf that’s reliably good. (As in, you can go ahead and stop buying bread at the store. This method is that easy. And that dependable.)
While it’s a fun kitchen project to do with kids, the excellent results mean that it’s really a project worth undertaking for “kids” of all ages. And we don’t mean “project” in the sense that it’s going to take you a ton of time and require reading a loooooong list of instructions. Nope, it’s really simple. It’s the easiest way we’ve found to get reliably good homemade sandwich bread. And anything that makes homemade bread a regular reality in our kitchen is a win in our book.
You start by mixing up a cup of flour, some sugar, and a packet of yeast in a gallon-sized zip-top bag…
And then you pour in a cup of warm water. You seal the bag, pressing out any air, and give it a few shakes and mash it around with your hands until it’s all combined.
You let it rest on the counter for ten minutes. This just gives the yeast a little chance to wake up. When you come back, your mixture should be nice and bubbly.
You then add some salt, another cup of flour, and some melted butter to the bag. You shake it and mix it around again until it’s all combined…
…before you add the final cup of flour and give it a good mix with your hands again. A more solid dough will start to form…
And you dump that out onto a floured surface…
Where you knead it just for five to ten minutes, until it loses its stickiness and becomes smoother and a little springier.
You pop it into a greased loaf pan, cover it with a towel, and let it sit somewhere warm to rise for 30-45 minutes.
It goes into the oven for 25 minutes and emerges the perfect warm, soft, white sandwich loaf. There’s not a lot of kneading, no punching down or shaping, very little waiting… and yet it’s a great loaf of bread every single time. Bread in a Bag is simple enough that anyone can make it. And good enough that everyone wants to eat it.