homemade bread
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How to Make Homemade Bread Without a Mixer

Homemade bread without a mixer.

This blog on how to make homemade bread without a mixer was first posted December 27, 2017. It has had many hits in the past two and a half years. But in the last two months, it has skyrocketed. Folks who don’t have a stand mixer are trying their hand at making bread – due to COVID 19. I’m re-posting this blog to help those searching for ways to make bread without a mixer. Paryce is now married and works as an Ag teacher – and still making her own bread! Recently, she used regular flour (because there’s a shortage of bread flour) and she said it didn’t rise as well. So she used it to make creamed eggs on toast for her hubby.

homemade bread without a mixer
No electric mixing – hands only!

No mixer homemade bread

Making your own homemade bread is not difficult, even if you have to mix it by hand. (People used to do it by hand back in the day, and it’s just as easy now as it was then.) You can mix it up and make homemade bread without a mixer and, while it might take a little longer, you will have the satisfaction of accomplishing this feat in short order!

Your oven. You can bake bread in an outdoor oven, an electric oven, or a gas range. It matters not at all. A convection will get the job done a little sooner, but you can use any oven, believe me.

A few weeks ago, our daughter’s friend, Paryce, visited and wanted to learn how to make bread. She doesn’t have a mixer (not even a hand-held one), but in the kitchen of Linger Longer, she learned how to make homemade bread without a mixer. My Bosch and my Kitchen Aid sat silently on the counters. The hand-held mixer stayed inside the drawer, and we just used a few measuring cups and a bowl to mix up the dough.

Ingredients

Gather your ingredients. You will need warm water (110-115); vegetable oil; sugar; salt; yeast; bread flour. That’s all. This is what you do.

Warm Water. Using tap water, turn it on to hot until it warms up and becomes the right temperature (110-115 degrees). I’ve used a meat thermometer and a candy thermometer to do this. Once you’ve done it a few times, you’ll be able to “feel” and know when it’s the right temperature. Measure the water and put it into a bowl or a measuring cup. We used a measuring cup. If the water is too hot, it will kill the yeast. If it’s too cold, the yeast won’t activate like it should. Learn to get the water just right. The picture below shows the beginning of the fizzing of the yeast.

homemade bread without a mixer

Yeast. Pour the yeast on top of the water. It will start to slide into the warm water.

Sugar. Add the sugar. Adding the sugar will help “push” the yeast down into the water. You can use a fork to stir it together. You definitely want that yeast to be submerged in the water!

Wait. Watch the yeast start to bubble as it dissolves. This will take 5-10 minutes.

homemade bread without a mixer
Most of the yeast is dissolved.

Vegetable Oil and Salt. In a large bowl, mix the two together. If you want to, you can add a cup of flour now, or just wait.

Add the mixtures. Mix the yeast/water and the vegetable oil/salt together well. We used a large slotted spoon.

homemade bread without a mixer
Mixing the salt/oil and water/yeast/sugar together

 

 

 

Add flour. Start with two cups. Use the slotted spoon until it’s too hard to handle.

homemade bread without a mixer

Kneading – and kneading

Begin kneading flour into the dough. Put some flour on your counter, spoon out the bread mixture and start mixing/kneading the flour into the dough. Just add a cup at a time and keep kneading.

homemade bread without a mixer
We divided the dough into two parts and each of us worked on one lump of dough, adding a little flour at a time.

Knead the dough. Keep working the dough and kneading until it is smooth and elastic. You’ll be able to get that “feel” after you’ve worked it long enough. My arms were starting to get tired but Paryce kept plugging away until her dough had a smooth, soft texture.

homemade bread without a mixer

Rising, punching, and rising

Put in a bowl and let it rise. Once the dough is the right texture, put it into a greased bowl, turning it over so that all sides are covered with oil. After it has doubled in size, punch it down with your hands and let it rise. You should let it rise twice if you have time.

On this photo, you can see where our fingers went into the dough to punch it down.

Making the loaves

Divide dough, shape loaves and put into bread pans. Pick up the dough and put it into a round or an oblong shape; you can knead it into the shape you want, or slap it with your hands to get the air bubbles off. 

homemade bread without a mixerOnce the loaf is in the pan, I put a fork down through the loaf – 5 or 6 places times total. This (supposedly) helps get rid of air bubbles. Plus, it’s the way my mama did it, so I do it this way, too. I have a sister who doesn’t prick her loaves anymore and she says they turn out fine.

 

Let bread rise, then bake. Once the bread is in the pan, let it rise again. Once it’s ready, put the pans into a pre-heated oven and bake. You can turn them around part-way through.

Schmutz. That’s Pennsylvania Dutch for “grease”.  So that’s what we do. Schmutz the tops of your bread and watch it glisten! You can use butter, margarine, Crisco, or vegetable oil.

The taste of  homemade

This photo is the finished product. The process took about four hours from start to finish. It took longer because I had Paryce practice getting the water temperature right, and then we were busy doing other things so the dough rose higher than it needed to before we punched it down both times. Plus, we took our time to knead the flour into the dough. You can do this easily in under two and a-half to three hours.

The recipe

You can follow this method using any recipe, but I’m happy to share the recipe I used for this one. I actually just doubled the easy dinner roll recipe. Here’s the doubled recipe.

homemade bread

How to Make Homemade Bread Without a Mixer

My Windowsill
Such an easy recipe to learn how to make homemade bread - without using a mixer! From start to finish, you can be done in two hours or a little more.
5 from 5 votes
Prep Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 2 hours
Course Bread
Cuisine American
Servings 3 loaves

Ingredients
  

  • 3 cups water
  • 1/2 cup sugar I used a lot less
  • 2 Tbsp. yeast
  • 1 Tbsp. salt
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 8-12 cups bread flour

Instructions
 

  • Dissolve yeast with sugar in warm water (110-115 degrees)
  • Mix vegetable oil and salt together
  • Add the yeast mixture to the oil mixture
  • Add 4 cups bread flour to the yeast mixture and stir until mixed well
  • Put the dough on the counter and dust with bread flour
  • Knead the bread flour into the dough
  • Keep adding more flour into the dough until it is not sticky
  • Knead on counter top until smooth and elastic - 5-10 minutes
  • Place into greased bowl and let rise in a warm, draft-free place
  • When double in size, punch down and let it rise again
  • Repeat
  • Divide dough into equal portions and shape into loaves
  • Put into greased bread pans and prick with a fork if desired
  • Let rise until double
  • Bake in 350 oven for 30 minutes or until brown
  • Remove from pans and cool on a rack or a tea towel
  • Grease the top of loaves with butter, margarine, vegetable oil, or Crisco

 

pinterest homemade bread without a mixer

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34 Comments

  1. Yes, you can. I have used regular flour, but I think it has more elasticity if you use bread flour. But if I’m out of bread flour, that’s what I use. Sometimes I use bread flour and if I need more, I use regular.

  2. Honey can be used. I don’t know about agave because I’m not familiar with it. 🙂
    Gert

  3. 5 stars
    I looked for a by hand recipe for white bread and found yours. Perfect. Lovely bread is produced and I love to do the kneading. I have made bread before but always feared that the motor of the mixer would burn out. Plus I miss the physical interaction with the dough.

  4. Thanks. I love to knead bread by hand, although I do like my mixer. The texture of the dough as you knead is tells you if it’s right or not. 🙂

  5. 5 stars
    I’ve only been able to make this a couple times, but I absolutely love it! I don’t have any mixers in the house so I was super happy when I came across your recipe. My husband and I both love how this bread turns out!

  6. I love this recipe. I’ve made it several times since COVID struck. Let me ask you, is there a way to modify this recipe to make cinnamon bread? Or do you have another recipe for cinnamon bread? That’s what I want to try next!

  7. If you want to make a quick bread like a banana bread that is a cinnamon bread, you’ll need a recipe with baking powder instead of yeast. But if you want to do a cinnamon swirl, you can use this recipe. You mix the bread like usual, let it rise, and then instead of just shaping it into a loaf, you can flatten it or roll it out, put cinnamon/sugar on the inside and roll it up like a jelly roll. Put it into the pan and let it rise again. We have done that sometimes. Some recipes for cinnamon bread call for yeast but also include milk and eggs. This would make the dough a little softer, but either one works. I hope this helps! I’m glad you enjoy the recipe – it’s an easy one! (Let me know how it turns out for you.) 🙂

  8. 5 stars
    My first 3 loaves are in the oven now! Smells wonderful! Loved the easy simple recipe!

  9. How exciting! That smell of fresh bread baking in the home is out of this world! I actually made this recipe for our family for our Christmas this evening – a pan of rolls and 3 loaves of bread – (triple recipe).

  10. I have made oatmeal bread a few times with hand mixer but it always rides up into motor so never really got it right especially never really got it to rise properly so ended up really “flat”. Do you have a recipe for oatmeal bread by hand???

  11. I think the Oatmeal Bread recipe I have can be done by hand. I used to just mix the beginning part together and then my kids helped add the flour, kneading it until it was right. If you have a hand-held mixer, you can mix the mixture with some flour, and then start adding flour by kneading. The recipe is on my blog. Let me know if you do it and how it turns out. I still have pictures of my guys when they were 3 1/2 and 5 sitting at the kitchen table with their chefs hats on; I divided the dough in half, and they each worked hard, kneading the dough for me. 🙂

  12. First time visiting! Was looking for “mixer less” recipe and up you popped…
    What a beautiful picture you make while sharing life with this young woman, imparting to her treasures that will keep on giving long after you are gone. Living words, “blessed to be a blessing”.

  13. This bread recipe is my go to tbh, I know it’s a very late covid comment but since the beginning of last June (2020) I keep going back to this recipe. If I need to make any sandwich bread, garlic bread, or Texas toast I sorta start here. It has a great taste and an easy bake. If I manipulate the recipe here or there this ratio stays stable. In a rush I’ll run the shower for 5 minute and leave the bread covered there for an hour but, yikes, this bread is dangerously good. Kudos

  14. Thanks! Since COVID, the views on this recipe are sky-high. 🙂 I’ve done the same thing (manipulate the recipe to speed things up). My girls call it “hormone rolls” when I get them out of the oven a little over an hour after mixing them – just by having the bowl it is raising in very warm, putting the dough by the fireplace, and having the pans warm before putting the dough into the pans. 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing!

  15. love it ! mine will be in the oven soon! so glad to find the no mixer recipe!
    now Im looking for a peach cobler good recipe..

  16. Glad to hear this. Making bread is a fun thing to do, and it’s also a great way to relieve stress (the kneading and thumping.) There’s a recipe for a peach/blackberry cobbler on my blog. You can just do plain peaches as well. Try it. I think you’ll like it. 🙂

  17. 5 stars
    Can I make this a day ahead of time? And how, should I let it rise 1 or 2 time, or just put in refrigerator after needing. Please let me know soon. I love this recipe and want to make for this Sunday dinner and afraid I won’t have time to get everything done on Sunday. Thank you so much.

  18. Good morning,
    I am so sorry that I am just seeing this now. I am recovering from surgery and have not checked this as often as I usually do. My apologies. I have never tried to do this ahead of time a nd let it rise in the refrigerator. I do have a recipe for refrigerator rolls that would work, but I think I might have missed the deadline for you. I’m not saying you can’t try it. If you did try it, let me know how it worked out!

  19. 5 stars
    I started making bread by hand about 2 years ago and I’ve been using your recipe as my GO-TO because every batch I make I always get nice loaves of bread/buns. I did try a couple of different bread recipes but nothing beats how your bread tastes. Thank you for being a huge part of my bread making journey, I’m grateful I came across your page from the start!! 🥰

  20. You are so welcome! I’m so glad you’ve had great success with your bread. This makes me happy! 🙂 I do love this recipe.

  21. I don’t know if it’s my phone only, but your social media tags float on top of the recipe the whole way down that I scroll. Just thought I’d let you know in case you wanted to adjust website. Thx

  22. Thank you. I’ve let my administrator know about this. He’s not sure he can change it, but I will tell him again.

  23. I’ve done this with cookies and other foods and have never tried it with rolls, but I don’t know why not. Let me know if you try it and if it works! 🙂

  24. Hi, I don’t know for sure. I’ve made rolls with honey in them. My friend Google says this: Honey is much sweeter than sugar, so use 1/2 – 2/3 cup honey for every cup of sugar in your recipe. Because honey is sweeter than sugar, you might not want to substitute at a 1-1 ratio (even though you can up to one cup). We recommend experimenting with a ratio of 1/2 – 2/3 cups honey to 1 cup sugar.
    I hope this helps.

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