Easy Milk and Honey Bread (5 Ingredients) - Mighty Mrs | Super Easy Recipes (2024)

Milk and honey bread that's quick and easy. The perfect treat for weekends. Just 5 ingredients, 2 minutes of kneading, and an hour of rising.

This milk and honey bread comes together so quick and easy, it's the perfect treat for weekends. And it will make your house smell so good too!

All you need is just 5 ingredients, 2 minutes of kneading, and an hour of rising.

★ Why You'll Love this Recipe ★

This 5 ingredient bread recipe using honey and milk is so easy to make!

Homemade bread seems like one of those illusive things. But it's not. Just read on for a few tips and tricks and you'll nail it on the first try.

The sweet and unique flavor of this loaf of bread is going to really wow you.

Easy enough even if you've never made bread before.

This recipe is absolutely easy enough for first-time bread makers! No bread machine required.

★ Ingredients You'll Need ★

All you need is 5 ingredients to make this bread.

Here's everything you need:

• Active dry yeast. Be sure it's fresh and not expired.
• Milk. You can use any percentage milk, however, a high percentage or whole milk will give you a more rich flavor. Go lighter if you prefer to cut calories and don't mind sacrificing a little flavor.
• Honey. Any kind of honey works. To loosen hardened honey, place jar in a bowl or deep dish of very hot water.
• Salt. Table salt, or if using sea salt, cut the amount in half.
• Bread flour. You can use all purpose flour, however, bread flour is much more ideal if you want soft, flexible bread. All purpose flour will create a stiff loaf and stiff slices.
• Optional: Add herbs like fresh rosemary or thyme to enhance the flavor of your bread.

You'll also want to use butter, oil or baking spray to grease your pan.

Serve warm topping with butter. Want to go all out? Make your own butter!

★ How to Make this Recipe ★

Here's a quick snapshot of the steps to making this bread.

Check out more detailed instructions below, but here's an overview of everything you need to do:

• Add yeast to warmed milk.
• Stir in honey, salt and flour.
• Knead dough.
• Place dough into bread pan.
• Cover and let rise.
• Punch down dough then return to bread pan.
• Bake.
• Let cool then slice and serve.

That's all there is to it. Pretty easy for homemade bread!

★ Tips & FAQs ★

If you're nervous about making this bread, read on for several tips.

Getting the Temperature Right for Yeast

Don't be too worried about working with yeast! It's not difficult. The most important thing is getting a fresh, new pack of yeast. The newer your yeast is, the better it will work. Certainly, make sure your yeast is not expired. Old yeast will potentially not activate, leaving you with a very dense and stiff loaf of bread.

The next most important thing is using very warm liquid to dissolve and activate it. The ideal temperature of your liquid should be between 105˚-110˚F. The best way to test this is with a thermometer. If you don't have a kitchen thermometer though, or don't have one that goes that low, you can get one from Amazon, they're pretty inexpensive. Shop cooking thermometers here

If you don't have time to get one, no worries. You can estimate it. Given your body temperature is 98.7, and the liquid needs to be just warmer than that, it's pretty easy to feel for it. Take a drop of the warmed liquid you're using, in the case of this recipe, it will be milk, and put it on the inside of your wrist. If you can't feel it, or it feels cold, then you need to make it warmer. If it feels hot, it's too hot. If it feels a little warm, then it's probably just right. (Note: Use extreme caution when applying any hot liquid to your skin)

Save time kneading, get some dough hooks.

I do not have a stand mixer but I do own a very powerful hand mixer. If you plan to use a mixer to knead your dough, then you'll need a sturdy mixer with an adequate motor to knead bread.

After burning out a few mixers, I found the Kitchen Aid hand mixer to be an excellent choice. It's only slightly more expensive than other mixers and has much more power. Trust me, it's worth it!

Hand Mixers vs. Stand Mixers

I personally prefer a hand mixer to a stand mixer for a few reasons:

1.) It takes up less space. Counter space is valuable and my hand mixer doesn't take up any of it. It fits snugly in a cabinet, along with its attachments.

2.) I like that I have more control over things with a hand mixer. I don't mind my arms getting a little work out (who doesn't need that?) and I like being able to use the mixer with any bowl I want.

3.) I love all the colors the Kitchen Aid mixer comes in! We own an orange ones because we're Cleveland Brown's fans but I was so tempted to get so many of the other colors. They're all pretty! It seems like a minor detail but I get a little joy out of having colorful and fun cooking tools.

I recommend buying the mixer plus all of the attachments which includes two dough hooks. Shop Kitchen Aid hand mixer with attachments on Amazon

You can choose your favorite color. 🙂

If you already own the KitchenAid hand mixer, you can just get dough hook attachments: Shop dough hooks on Amazon

Kneading by Hand

Even though I recommend using a hand or stand mixer with bread hooks to save time, you can knead by hand if you prefer. It will just take a bit longer. Generally, 2 minutes of electric kneading is equivalent to 10 minutes of hand kneading. To knead by hand take the ball of dough and press it flat into a circle with your hands. Fold the dough in half and press down. Then fold it in half again so it's a quarter of the size it was. Press down. Then repeat over and over.

Letting the Bread Rise

The dough will need to rise just once, for about an hour in a warm place. For me, that's in my microwave with the lights underneath on. The lights make the microwave nice and warm but not too hot.

You could also put your dough in the oven. Just make sure the oven is off. If it's cold in there, turn it on for a few minutes to warm it up, then turn it off and put your dough in there. If you have a sunny room, that would probably work too. Just a little warmer than room temperature is what you're after.

Specifically, the ideal temperature for letting your bread rise is 80° - 90°F. Higher than 90˚ and the yeast can die, preventing the dough from rising. Lower than 80˚ and the yeast will activate more slowly or not at all which will increase the time it takes to rise or the dough may not rise at all.

Cover your dough with a breathable towel, like a thin tea towel or a kitchen hand towel that doesn't shed is fine too.

How to Punch Down Your Dough

Once the dough is done rising, you'll be able to press into it with your finger and see an indentation. That's how you'll know it's done rising.

The next step before baking is to punch it down. You want to punch the dough straight up and down with the goal of pressing it evenly into the bowl. 4-5 punches should do the job.

Carefully handle the dough when you place it into your greased bread pan. You'll want to flip your dough over so that the smooth part that was in the bottom of the bowl becomes the top of your loaf. Try not to press into the dough when you handle it of you will end up with a lumpy looking loaf.

Don't forget to grease your bowl and your bread pan!

Your dough will be sticky so to easily get it out of the bowl, make sure you grease it first. Same with baking your bread in the pan. Once it bakes, it will be difficult to get out of the pan if you forget to grease it! You can use cooking oil or butter to grease both things and be generous with it, taking the oil all the way up the sides of the pan (and bowl). Too little oil will make it difficult to remove the loaf from the pan later.

Use a bread knife to slice your bread.

For a long time I didn't own a bread knife. I finally got one and it makes a world of difference! A bread knife is long and serrated so you can saw through a loaf of even the most tender bread without squishing it. This bread in particular is very light so I highly recommend slicing it with a long, serrated bread knife. Shop bread knives on Amazon

You can use bread flour or all purpose flour.

I recommend bread flour for a more chewy and soft bread-like texture.

However, you can use all purpose flour if that's all you have. The bread will be a bit more stiff and dense but will still taste great with a subtle milk and honey flavor.

Toast and spread with butter. Yum!

Want a real treat? Try topping your homemade bread with homemade butter! Get my homemade butter recipe here.

★ More Recipes You'll Love ★

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This recipe for easy 5-ingredient milk and honey bread was featured on Meal Plan Monday and South Your Mouth!