How to make bread with flour and water

In today’s post: This is the perfect easy bread recipe to make while you’re stuck at home. It only takes 4 ingredients and less than 10 minutes of hands on work.

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Easy Bread Recipe Card
Reader Interactions
Can I make dough with flour and water?
What happens if you bake flour and water?
Do I add the flour to the water or water to the flour?
What is flour and water dough called?

My Easy Artisan Bread Recipe has been one of the most popular posts on my site for a couple of years now – and for good reason! It only takes 4 ingredients and a tiny amount of work and it turns out absolutely amazing. There’s only one thing that could make it easier: using a normal loaf pan instead of a circular dish with high sides (like an enameled dutch oven).

So that’s what I did this week! I figured out how to make this easy bread recipe even easier. All you need is flour, yeast, salt and water and you are ready to get started. There’s no need for a mixer because this recipe doesn’t even require kneading! I have a step by step video for you that shows everything you need to do in real time – and it’s under 8 minutes long.

Seriously, this loaf is easy enough that your kids and teens could make it for you!

All you do is stir together the four ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, water) and then allow them to rest + rise on your countertop for a nice long time – anywhere between 8 and 24 hours will work. This long rise builds the structure of the bread, which means we don’t have to do any kneading at all! It also allows a lot of really nice flavor to develop.

The end result is a chewy bread with large air holes that tastes absolutely amazing. Now, this isn’t your standard white sandwich bread that’s super duper soft – check out this recipe for a standard homemade white bread – but it does make an amazing sandwich. Although we hardly ever have enough left over for sandwiches since we tend to eat the entire loaf fresh out of the oven, spread with plenty of butter.

The video below walks you through every single step needed to make this bread and gives lots of explanation. I show you every bit of hands on work in real time – and the video takes less than 8 minutes including my commentary! This bread does require a long rise – meaning you probably want to stir it up the night before you’d like to bake it – but the hands on time is only about 5 minutes. The recipe card is below the video.

(Note: if the video isn’t showing up below, that means you are using an ad-blocker. Whitelist this site in order to see the video. I know no one likes watching ads, but they allow me to create tons of free content for you. Thanks!)

Easy Bread Recipe Card

This easy bread recipe only takes 4 ingredients and 5 minutes of hands on time!

3 cups All Purpose Flour
1.5 cups Warm Water
1/2 teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
1 teaspoon Salt

In a medium bowl, stir together all four ingredients. Mixture will look shaggy and a bit dry. If it seems wet, add a little more flour.
Cover bowl with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature to rest for anywhere between 8 and 24 hours. Dough will get much wetter and will be full of small bubbles.
Generously flour a cutting board. Gently tip the dough onto the cutting board, using a spatula to scrape it all out of the bowl.
Dough will be very soft and wet. Using floured hands, quickly grab the top and bottom edges of the dough and pinch them together in the middle, forming a loaf shape. You can see how to do this in the instructional video.
Spray or grease a loaf pan. Pick up the cutting board and dust off excess flour, then tip the board gently to allow dough to fall into the loaf pan.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes.
Use a sharp knife to make one long slice across the top of the dough. Bake for 50-55 minutes until top is deep golden brown and loaf sounds very hollow when tapped.
Remove bread from pan and cool at least 15-20 minutes before slicing with a very sharp serrated knife.

Course: Bread

Cuisine: Bread

Hello there! I’m a busy mom of five who loves to make things. Crafts, recipes, sewing, holiday projects: I’ve tried them all, and you can too! I love EASY projects anyone can make.

Reader Interactions

Can I make dough with flour and water?

Instructions. Combine the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Gradually add water while stirring and mixing to form a dough with a Play-Doh like consistency. Form the dough into a ball and knead for approximately 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and firm.

What happens if you bake flour and water?

The act of adding boiling water to flour is actually a very common technique used in Scandinavian and Asian baking to pre-cook the starch in the flour so it takes on a jelly-like texture (via Virtuous Bread). The result is a softer, squishier bread without the addition of any extra fat.

Do I add the flour to the water or water to the flour?

If you put the flour in the bowl first it will be more difficult to fully hydrate the flour, often requiring several minutes longer mixing time. But if the water goes in first the flour is actually hydrated faster, which will shorten the total mixing time by several minutes.

What is flour and water dough called?

Remember, an autolyse is simply the combination of the flour and water in a recipe—that's it. However, in some cases, it might actually be necessary to include the levain, or preferment, in the autolyse. Always remember, once a preferment (levain, biga, poolish, etc.) is added to a dough, fermentation begins.