How to Bake a Classic British White Loaf

Why a White Loaf Is Worth Getting Right

A good white loaf is the quiet workhorse of the British kitchen. It is the bread that takes a decent slathering of salted butter, holds a fried egg without collapsing, and turns into the sort of golden toast that makes a wet Tuesday morning bearable. Shop-bought loaves are soft, admittedly, but they are also sweet, strangely uniform and prone to going stale in a way that seems almost deliberate. Baking your own is not difficult. It simply asks for a little patience and a set of scales.

This method makes one large 900g tin loaf — roughly eighteen generous slices — with a soft crumb, a thin golden crust and enough structure to slice thinly without shredding. Once you have baked it three or four times, you will stop measuring the water quite so nervously and start recognising the feel of the dough. That is the real skill.

What You Need Before You Start

Precision matters more in bread than in cake. A cup of flour can vary wildly, so weigh everything in grams and use millilitres for the liquid.

• 500g strong white bread flour — plain flour will give you a flat, cakey loaf, so check the bag says "bread" or "strong".
• 7g fast-action dried yeast — one sachet. If yours is past its date, bin it; stale yeast is the most common reason for a brick.
• 10g fine salt — never skip it, and never tip it directly onto the yeast, as it slows it down.
• 15g soft butter or 20ml mild olive oil, for a tender crumb.
• 320ml warm water, or half water and half full-fat milk for a softer crust and a slightly richer flavour.
• A 900g (2lb) loaf tin, roughly 20cm by 11cm, greased lightly with butter or oil.

You will also want a clean tea towel, a large bowl, and about three hours of mostly unattended time.

Making the Dough

Tip the flour into a large bowl, add the yeast to one side and the salt to the other, then rub in the butter with your fingertips. Pour in the warm water — it should feel like a comfortable bath, no hotter, or you will kill the yeast — and bring everything together with a wooden spoon or your hand until you have a shaggy, slightly sticky mass.

Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for ten minutes. Push the heel of your hand into the dough, fold it back over itself, give it a quarter turn, and repeat. It will be tacky and annoying for the first four minutes, then suddenly coherent and smooth. To test, stretch a small piece between your fingers: it should go translucent without tearing. That is called the windowpane, and it means the gluten is developed enough to hold the rise.

Wipe out your bowl, oil it lightly, and put the dough back in. Cover with a tea towel or oiled cling film and leave somewhere draughty-free and warm — an airing cupboard is ideal, a sunny windowsill is not — for about an hour, until it has roughly doubled.

Shaping and the Second Prove

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and press it flat to knock out the big pockets of gas. Now shape it. Flatten into a rough rectangle roughly the width of your tin, fold the two long sides into the middle, then roll it up tightly from one short end like a Swiss roll. Pinch the seam and place the dough seam-side down in the greased tin.

Cover loosely and leave for 45 to 60 minutes. The test is simple: the dough should rise just proud of the rim of the tin and spring back slowly when pressed with a fingertip. If it springs back instantly, it needs longer. If it sighs and collapses, it has gone too far — bake it anyway, it will still taste good.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan, gas 7) and put a shelf in the middle. A small roasting tin of water on the floor of the oven creates steam, which keeps the crust from setting too fast and gives you a better rise.

Baking, Cooling and Storing

If you like a soft, shiny crust, brush the top with a little milk or beaten egg just before it goes in. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, turning the tin after twenty if your oven has hot spots. The loaf is done when it is deep golden, sounds hollow when tapped on the base, and reads about 96°C on a probe thermometer pushed into the centre.

Turn it out of the tin straight away and cool it on a wire rack. This is the hard part: do not slice it warm. The crumb is still setting and a hot cut will give you a gummy, claggy slice. Wait at least an hour.

Keep it in a paper bag or a bread bin, cut side down on the board, and it will be excellent for two days and perfectly good for toast on the third. For anything beyond that, slice it and freeze it — home-baked bread has no preservatives, so it will go stale faster than you expect. Revive a tired loaf in a hot oven for five minutes, and it comes back to life beautifully.