Homemade Amish White Bread

Amish White Bread is a no-fail homemade bread recipe with a soft, fluffy texture that’s beloved by kids and adults alike. Use it for grilled cheese, French toast, sandwiches, and more!

This recipe was updated in September, 2021 to include step by step photos, tips, and a video!

Almost Famous Easy White Bread Recipe

I don’t remember ever having sourdough or wheat or brioche bread when I was a kid. It was always Amish White Bread, bought from one of the farmer’s markets near our house.

It was our everyday, use-it-for-everything loaf.

Slathered with butter and jam, it was the perfect side dish for Mom’s Meatloaf. On Sunday afternoons, it made the best Scrambled Egg Sandwiches.

And in summertime, we’d smear it with salted butter and stack it with radishes or tomatoes or make crisp, refreshing Cucumber Sandwiches.

The bread was so good, I smuggled boxes of it from home to college, where it had quite the following among my friends and roommates, who lovingly referred to it as, “THE Bread”.

It never occurred to me to make it myself, until one day my friend showed up to church with a homemade loaf that tasted eerily similar to the bread of my childhood. I begged her for the recipe, and low and behold, what did she send me in return? A recipe for “Amish White Bread.” Of course.

Whether you’re a pro bread baker or a novice, you’re going to LOVE this easy white bread recipe. It’s:

• Practically fool proof. Seriously. I’ve fudged the timing or the rolling more than once, and still managed to turn out a darn good loaf.
• Made with just 5 ingredients (and you probably already have them on hand!).
• Enough for two loaves. That means you can down half a loaf while it’s still warm from the oven (something that’s nearly impossible not to do), and still have plenty left for all your sandwich and toast needs.

Ingredients in Amish White Bread

Here’s what you’ll need to make this loaf:

• Active Dry Yeast (not rapid rise)- I use two of the .25 ounce packets, or 1.5 Tablespoons.
• Sugar
• Vegetable Oil
• Salt– I prefer Kosher salt, but you can use table salt. Reduce the amount by ¼ teaspoon.
• All purpose flour– This is another reason I LOVE this recipe. It doesn’t require bread flour, which I don’t always have on hand.

How to Make Amish White Bread (with step by step photos)

Combine warm water, sugar, and yeast in the bowl of an electric mixer. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes or until bubbly and frothy, like the photo on the left.

TIP: I use a thermometer to test the temperature of the water. Aim for between 110 and 115 degrees. If your mixture doesn’t froth, it’s likely that the yeast is expired or no longer good. Get new yeast and start over. Trust me, it’s much better than going through the whole process only to discover your bread won’t rise!

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Stir in the salt, vegetable oil, and half the flour, then add the remaining flour.

Switch to the dough hook, and slowly incorporate the remaining flour. Then switch to high speed and allow the dough hook to beat the heck out of the dough for several minutes, until it begins to pull away from the edges.

How to Knead Dough

Kneading sounds intimidating, but it’s really not. Watch the video, and try these tips to make it go smoothly.

1. Flour your countertop AND hands generously.
2. Turn your dough out onto the floured surface. Use your hands to fold the upper half of the dough over the lower half, and then press the heels of your hands into the dough. Do this a few times, then rotate the dough 90 degrees and repeat.
3. Repeat for several minutes, adding flour as needed if the dough is sticking to the counter. A bench scraper can also be handy for scraping up sticky dough AND cleaning up flour.
4. Enjoy the process! Experience the feel of the squishy dough in your hands. Get out some rage energy. Keep going until the dough feels smooth and elastic, then move on.

Proofing the dough

Once you’ve kneaded the dough, you’ll need to proof it, or let it rise.

Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, and cover it loosely with saran wrap.

Place it in a warm place to rise for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

What is “a warm place”? On a mild summer day, place the dough outside. In the winter, turn on your oven for a few minutes, then turn it off, and place your bowl inside or on top of the oven, where the warm air vents.

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Shaping the dough into loaves

Once the dough is risen, you get to do the really fun part! Punch it down to release the air bubbles.

Then, turn out the dough onto a floured surface (again). Press it out into a roughly 9 x 13 inch rectangle. If the dough keeps springing back on you, let it rest for a few minutes before trying again.

Starting on the short side, roll the dough into a log. Then tuck the ends under and use your finger to press and seal the edges.

You can see in my video that this particular loaf was a little wonky, and bigger on one side than the other. You can kind of pat it to more evenly distribute the dough, but as you can see in the photos, this loaf still turned out beautiful! Like I’ve mentioned, it’s a VERY forgiving recipe!

Proof the dough a second time

Place the dough into a greased 9 inch loaf pan and cover again with saran wrap.

Repeat with the second loaf, then place them both back into the warm spot to rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.

Preheat and bake

When the rise time is almost completed, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Remove the saran wrap and pop the loaves into the oven (make sure there’s plenty of space above the rack for the bread to rise!).

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the loaves are puffed and golden brown.

How to Store and Freeze Homemade White Bread

• To keep the bread fresh, wrap it in saran wrap or a plastic bread holder. It will keep well at room temperature for about 4 days. It keeps best unsliced.
• Invest in a good bread knife for slicing! This is a tender loaf, which can make it tricky, but this very affordable bread knife works quite well!
• This bread freezes very well. Double wrap it in saran wrap, then bag it, and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.

What to Make with Amish White Bread

This bread’s mildly sweet flavor makes it incredibly versatile. It’s quite good with nothing but butter and jam (especially warm from the oven!). We also love slathering it with a thick layer of Amish Peanut Butter Spread.

Here are a few of our other favorite ways to enjoy this bread:

• It makes AMAZING toast.
• Grilled cheese- Particularly Air Fryer Grilled Cheese, Caprese Paninis, and Mushroom Swiss Grilled Cheese.
• Grilled Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches
• Grilled Fluffernutter Sandwiches
• Eggs in a Basket
• Turkey Avocado Sandwich
• French toast

More Amish Recipes To Try

I love sharing recipes from my Amish heritage! Try some of these other family favorites:

• Amish Baked Oatmeal
• Amish Chicken and Noodles in the Crock Pot
• Slow Cooker Beef and Noodles
• Amish Apple Fry Pies
• Mom’s Classic Custard Pie

For posterity’s sake, I’ve included the story I originally shared with this post below. It’s quite the origin story!

I was standing nervously in the communion line at my church, caught between the tearing off of the bread and the dipping it in the cup. Our church had been experimenting with different kinds of bread for weeks, trying to find the right combination of sturdy but pullable. This Sunday’s was definitely not the one. It was dry and crumbly, and after giving it a sturdy tug I found myself gripping a piece of bread only slightly bigger than a grain of sand, willing it not to disintegrate in my hand.

I ran through my options quickly. Do I go back and try to pull off another piece of bread? That’s awkward. Do I skip the cup entirely? Or do I just go for the dunk, and then forever be known as “that girl who dunked her whole hand in the communion cup.”

I wish I could say this was the first time I’ve had an awkward moment in church, but unfortunately I’ve experienced many a communion gaffe. Sipping at the wrong time, spilling juice on myself, eating the cracker when you’re supposed to be praying…let’s just say no one is using the words “proper” to describe me.

I often wonder if Jesus envisioned these awkward moments when he instituted communion some 2,000 years ago. Did he think of all the different forms this strange sacrament would take–a gluten free cracker, naan, a loaf of sourdough, even Hawaiian rolls. (Yes, I’ve been to a church that used Hawaiian rolls, and it was kind of amazing).

Did he know we’d quibble about whether to use wine or grape juice and have arguments about tiny individual cups vs. a common cup? Did Jesus picture me, standing there crumb in hand, caught in a moment profoundly sacred and yet so very human?

Certainly, God has his own way of doing things. If I were God (*insert heresy) I would’ve picked something much more grand to represent me–perhaps a golden, gleaming statue or a loud and proud orchestral song. I certainly wouldn’t have picked something as commonplace as bread and wine.  I suppose that’s why he’s God and I’m not. Jesus was always right there in the thick of things, frustrating people with his normal-ness.

These thoughts flash through my mind as I wait my turn in the communion line, then finally decide to go for it, plunging my barely-there crumb into the thinnest drop of liquid. As I do, I thank God for grace and a Savior who doesn’t shy away from our messy, complicated, awkward lives.

Then, of course, I pray we find a better loaf for communion. Luckily, a friend of mine took on the task herself, and started bringing a homemade loaf to church each week. If you’ve never sat in a pew a few rows behind a communion table set with fresh homemade bread, you do not know what temptation is. This is THE bread.