I have made a lot of bread in my time. Once, I thought about opening up a bakery.

This is my favorite baking book ever for bread. If you want you can make his white bread loaf vegan very easily - if that matters to you. Don't rush out and buy it if you have a recipe already though! Honestly, the first bread recipe I ever made was the Joy of Cooking.

Bread making doesn't have to take that long. If you are making a simple loaf an investment of 4-6 hours should suffice.

I like quick-rise yeast. It generally cuts the rise time into about half.

When you are letting your bread rise, cover it with a damp towel. This prevents it from forming a crust as it rises. If it forms a crust, it won't rise as well.

I like kneading. A no-knead bread to me kind of defeats the purpose of making bread. Also, MAKING BREAD IS NOT THAT HARD (disclaimer: if you are good at baking.) (Addendum: the only way you will not be good at baking is if you are no good at following directions.) (Addendum two: find a recipe with honey in it, don't just go around throwing things into your recipe. baking is chemistry. cooking is an art. in baking you must be precise.). If you choose to go with a kneaded bread, when you are kneading, you will need (ha-ha) to cover the counter with flour. You may find you need to add more flour to the dough so it doesn't stick to your hands. Add as little flour as is possible for the best bread. If you add too much flour your bread will be leaden and heavy. You want a light delicate bread. (Usually recipes will be like "6-7 cups of flour," instruct you to start with 6, and add up to (the extra cup/half-cup) as necessary.)

Proof your yeast. Proofing your yeast is your way of checking to make sure the yeast is alive. If the yeast ain't alive, you dun be makin bread. It's also kind of super cool to see the bubbles as they rise.

BREAD FLOUR vs. CAKE FLOUR vs. REGULAR FLOUR

Look, I'm just going to go flat out and say I disagree with humanodon here, at least to an extent. The big difference in these three types of flour is the amount of protein in them. You absolutely cannot substitute cake flour for regular/bread flour if you are making bread, it will be too soft, you will have to add too much, and your bread will be leaden. But hey - you have to go to special places to get cake flour so I don't think you need to worry about that particular mistake.

In my own experience (and this is the part where I disagree with you, humano) you absolutely can use "regular" flour instead of "bread flour." Regular flour actually has varying amounts of protein in it depending on the brand. For U.S. Southerners, for instance, there's a brand called "White Lily" which is a lovely flour - but it is lower in protein (even though it's not a cake flour). If you use this in bread you'll have to use a lot. I'd avoid it. On the other hand, "King Arthur" flour - even the non-bread-flour - has a high protein content relative to other brands. I'd just buy regular King Arthur if I was being fussy. I will absolutely just use plain regular ol' "Gold" or whatever flour to make bread from time-to-time. If I want to make bread and I have all the ingredients except the special fancy-pants flour, I'm not making a trip just to get it.

I also like Alton Brown for baking but he is going to make you buy a kitchen scale if you want to follow a lot of his recipes and I know it's what the professionals do but it's just not worth it.

If you can't find a honey bread recipe (highly unlikely) replace the sugar with honey. DON'T put in both unless you don't mind a sweet bread. Keep in mind when you're doing this that you'll be replacing a dry ingredient with a wet ingredient, so even if it's just a tablespoon or two (which is about what it should be) you're changing the texture of your bread and therefore your dough.

When you put your bread in the oven to finally bake it, brush the top of the crust with melted butter or if you want to be fancy, egg. It will give a nice sheen.

Typically, when you make bread, you're going to give it two rises and then a bake. Rising tip: When it's winter or my house isn't particularly warm, I like to turn my oven to the lowest possible setting, let it pre-heat, and then turn it off. Then I put the bread inside. If the oven's too hot it could kill the yeast and/or your second rise, so I don't recommend keeping the oven on.

Making bread is pretty fucking fun. Start with a plain white loaf. Then move on to challah (braided bread) brioche (a rich sweet white bread), cinnamon rolls/sticky buns, even croissants and Danish pastries! (I have made croissants a few times. Now THAT is a bread that will take your whole weekend and your whole patience. I did absolutely ruin them somehow the first time I made them. That is a hard bread.)

"Quick loaves" (like beer bread, zucchini bread, banana bread, anything that uses baking powder as a leavening agent instead of yeast) I don't really consider bread (see note about baking powder vs. yeast) but they're fun and delicious, especially beer bread. I have an excellent recipe for beer bread (uses a whole stick of butter...but worth it) that I'll see if I can dig up and post later. They are delicious and quick though.

A good white bread recipe shouldn't be complicated. It should only have like six ingredients. Flour, water, (if your recipe specifies a temperature for the water and it probably will, MAKE SURE THAT TEMPERATURE IS ACCURATE. otherwise you're going to kill your yeast. it should probably be in the 110-130 degree range. If you don't have a thermometer, you can find approximations. Mine would be: "It should definitely feel hot but not too hot to stand.") sugar (to feed the yeast), yeast, maybe butter, definitely salt. (When baking never omit the salt. Ask me why! - No, you don't really have to ask.)

In finale, I see you are doing this to try to replace store-bought bread. 1) Your bread will get stale a lot faster. (This is a consequence of not having all kinds of wonky engineered substances in it designed to prolong its life.) 2) If you do a good job good luck keeping your bread around for long enough for it to get stale ;) Warm bread is delicious and goes fast.

And that reminds me. They're going to tell you to let the bread completely cool before you cut it.

Fuck that.

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So thar's my brain-pickin's.