Easy bread recipe with four ingredients makes ‘fresh artisan loaves’

Vonnie regularly shares her “great food ideas for families” on her TikTok account, @vonnie_m_andkids.

In one video watched by 9.6 million people, she showed her way of making fresh artisan bread – with very few ingredients and no kneading.

“If you have an oven in your kitchen, you can make this bread – it’s so simple,” she explained.

Ingredients: 

• 500g or 3.5 cups of plain flour
• 10g or one teaspoon of salt
• 7g or half a teaspoon of dry yeast
• 375g or two cups of warm-hot tap water
• Large mixing bowl
• Cling film or a tea towel
• Square cake tin
• Baking paper
• Oven tray

Method: 

1. Add the plain flour, salt and yeast into a bowl and “mix all of that together”.

2. Pour in the water, but Vonnie said: “I’m going to reserve just a fraction to make sure my consistency is correct.”

3. Mix well and check the consistency. Vonnie said you want to have a “nice and sticky” dough with “no areas of dry flour”. She added: “It just looks a fraction wetter than it should be, but that means the dough is absolutely perfect.” Turning to the camera, she revealed: “I didn’t quite use the full two cups of water.”

4. Vonnie continued: “Cover it with cling film” and “leave it overnight”. She made her dough at 11pm that evening and left it to rise on the kitchen counter until the morning. At 07:30 the next morning, the dough was “nice and jiggly” it was also “airy” and “super sticky”. The dough had doubled in size. If you don’t want to leave the dough overnight, leave it for a minimum of four hours to rise.

6. As for how Vonnie achieved an artisan-style loaf, she used an “old square cake pan” and” filled it with water and popped it into the bottom of the oven” so it creates “a steam effect” for the bread.

7. The oven was set to 220 degrees Celsius, and the oven tray was placed above the square cake tin filled with water, to heat up.

8. Cut a sheet of baking paper and place it onto the kitchen work surface and flour it liberally with plain flour.

9. Tip the dough out of the mixing bowl onto the baking paper and flour and simply fold over the edges into the middle.

10. The dough can then be divided into two and shaped. Vonnie said: “This is the fun part” where “you can turn the bread into whatever you want to make it”. She chose to make one straight baguette and another plaited loaf.

11. For the straight baguette, just shape half the dough into a long log. For the plaited loaf, separate the other half of the dough into three and plait it, then tuck under the ends. Flour both of the loaves and using a sharp knife, slice down the side of the straight baguette.

12. Leave the bread for 30 minutes and then slide the baking paper onto the hot oven tray and place into the oven for 35 minutes.

13. After 35 minutes, remove the square cake tin filled with water so the outside of the bread crisps up for another five minutes.

14. Remove from oven and let the loaves cool before cutting.

As for how easy the recipe was, Erwin commented: “Followed your recipe and it turned out amazing!!! Will definitely be making this again. Thank you.”

Jacqueline said: “I made this bread per your instructions and it came out beautifully. Just like yours.”

Betty added: “Y’all!! I just made this and it’s amazing!!”

Robin explained: “I’m coming back here to say this is always a hit when I make it, everyone absolutely adores it!! Thank you for this recipe darling.”