Toast bread with the Thermomix® takes 90 seconds on kneading mode in the mixing bowl, followed by three hours of patience. We have been baking it in a loaf tin for years, because shop-bought toast bread goes soggy after two days while ours is still soft after three.
We tested the recipe at length until the crumb was as soft as the kind you find in the supermarket. The key is not the flour and not a particular brand of yeast, but two small details that most bread recipes get wrong: the ratio of milk to water and the unusually long proving time.
Toast Bread with the Thermomix®
Ingredients 0 / 7 ✓
- 60 g butter
- 1/2 cube fresh yeast
- 750 g flour
- 250 g water
- 100 g milk (3.5% fat)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp honey
Instructions 0 / 8
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1
Warm the butter and yeast.
Add butter in pieces together with the yeast to the mixing bowl and mix for 2 minutes / 37°C / speed 1.
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2
Knead the dough.
Add flour, water, milk, salt and honey to the mixing bowl and knead for 4 minutes / kneading mode until you have a smooth dough.
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3
Prove the dough.
Transfer the dough to a bowl, cover with a damp kitchen towel and leave to rise in a warm place for 3 hours.
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4
Preheat the oven.
Preheat the oven to 50°C top and bottom heat. Grease a loaf tin with butter.
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5
Shape the dough.
Dust the dough with a little flour, knead lightly by hand and place into the greased loaf tin.
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6
Bake.
Lightly grease the underside of a sheet of foil, lay it over the tin and bake on the middle shelf for 30 minutes.
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7
Continue baking.
Increase the oven temperature to 200°C fan, leave the foil loosely on the bread and bake for a further 30 minutes.
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8
Finish baking.
Remove the foil and bake until the desired colour is reached, approximately 8 to 10 minutes more.
Tip: The bread tastes great without toasting too.
Nutrition per serving
Why this toast bread turns out softer than our regular everyday loaf
Standard bread dough in the Thermomix® proves for 45 to 60 minutes. For this toast bread it is a full three hours. That is not a comfort buffer but a requirement. The reason lies in the 60 g of butter and 100 g of milk in the dough: fat and milk proteins coat the yeast cells and slow their activity. With a plain water, salt and flour dough the yeast would be done in an hour. Here it needs considerably longer because it first has to work its way through the fat.
This long proving time pays off twice over. First, a finer, more even crumb structure develops. Second, the dough builds flavour because the yeast converts the lactose from the 100 g of milk into subtle acids along the way. It is precisely those acids that make the difference between a toast bread that tastes of bread and one that tastes of sweet brioche. Anyone who cuts corners and slides it into the oven after 90 minutes will get a dense, dull loaf.
The order of ingredients matters
We start by putting the 60 g of butter and the half cube of yeast into the mixing bowl and mixing for 2 minutes / 37°C / speed 1. More happens here than you might expect. The butter does not melt completely but softens. The yeast is brought to its optimum working temperature without being scalded. If we were to activate the yeast at a higher temperature it would be dead within 20 seconds and the bread would not rise at all. 37 degrees is the threshold. Anything above that is risky.
Only then do we add 750 g flour, 250 g water, 100 g milk, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp honey. The order in the recipe is exactly as intended. Salt must never come into direct contact with the yeast because it draws water from the yeast cells and disables them. As long as the yeast is already coated in butter with the flour acting as a buffer in between, everything is fine. The honey is not a sweetener but yeast food. One teaspoon is enough to kick-start fermentation without making the bread taste sweet.
The kneading runs for 4 minutes / kneading mode. Anyone who kneads for less will end up with a dough that holds together but has too little gluten structure. The bread then collapses in the tin as soon as the yeast activity slows. Four minutes are not chosen at random. That is the time the gluten in 750 g of flour needs to form a stable network capable of holding the gases produced by the yeast.
The oven trick with the foil
The second point where many toast breads fail is the crust. Toast bread should not have a hard crust because it is meant to be toasted. Even so, the top of the loaf must colour properly for the shape to hold. Our solution is the lightly greased sheet of foil that we lay loosely over the loaf tin for the first 60 minutes. It stops the surface from drying out too early and forming a hard crust. At the same time it retains enough heat inside the loaf for it to bake evenly all the way through.
The baking runs in three stages. We start at 50°C top and bottom heat for 30 minutes. This is not really a baking temperature but a final prove in the oven. The dough rises once more in the tin and sets. Then we increase to 200°C fan for a further 30 minutes, still with the foil. Only at the end do we remove the foil and bake for a further 8 to 10 minutes until the desired colour is reached. Anyone who likes it paler takes 8 minutes. Anyone who wants a stronger surface colour goes to 10. Most people need no more than that.
What often goes wrong the first time
The dough does not rise enough. The place was usually too cold. With butter and milk in the dough, the dough needs a constant 24 to 26 degrees for it to actually use those three hours. At 18 degrees in the kitchen the bread stays dense. We place the bowl on the radiator or in the oven with just the light on, covered with the damp towel.
The crumb is too dense. Anyone who measures out 750 g of flour without paying attention to the type may get an unpleasant surprise. We use flour type 550 (plain bread flour) because it has more gluten than the standard type 405 (plain flour) and therefore makes the crumb softer and more elastic. Type 405 works too, but then use 730 g rather than 750 g or the dough will be too dry.
The bread sinks in the tin. This happens when the dough in the loaf tin has over-proved. Once you have kneaded the dough again and placed it in the tin, it should go straight into the preheated 50-degree oven. Anyone who waits another half hour will get over-proofing. The yeast has then spent all its energy and the dough collapses in the oven.
How we vary the recipe
With a wholemeal element: We replace 200 g of the flour with spelt wholemeal flour. The bread turns out a little denser but considerably more nutritious. The proving time increases to 3.5 hours because wholemeal flour absorbs more water and slows the yeast.
Sweeter breakfast bread: Instead of 1 tsp of honey we use 30 g of sugar and add 1 tsp of vanilla sugar. The bread then tastes more like brioche and goes particularly well with jam when you do not toast it.
With seeds: Add 30 g of sunflower seeds or linseed straight in with the flour in the mixing bowl. The kneading time stays at 4 minutes and the seeds distribute evenly through the dough. For a seeded crust, brush the top of the loaf with water before baking and press on sesame seeds or poppy seeds.
Storing and keeping it fresh for longer
Fresh from the oven, the toast bread keeps at room temperature for about three days if we put it in a bread bin or wrap it in a clean tea towel. Plastic bags are out because the bread sweats in them and goes mouldy. After three days it is not bad, just drier. That is actually the ideal time to toast it, because toasted bread loses moisture anyway.
We slice the cooled loaf with a bread knife into 1 cm thick slices and pre-freeze the slices individually on a tray. Only once they are firm do we put them all together in a freezer bag. That way they do not stick together and we can take individual slices straight from the freezer into the toaster. It saves time in the morning and the bread tastes just as good after toasting as it does fresh from the oven. It keeps in the freezer without any problem for three months.
How we serve it
In the mornings we have it with homemade strawberry jam made in the Thermomix® or with a generous spoonful of chocolate hazelnut spread. At lunchtime we often make Croque Monsieur with it, using good ham and grated Gruyere. Anyone who likes avocado toast has the ideal base here, because the bread is firm enough to support the avocado without going soggy.
Leftover toast bread that is already two days old is ideal for French toast. A hint of cinnamon in the egg mixture, a little butter in the pan and the older bread becomes a proper Sunday breakfast. The toasted slices also work brilliantly in a quick bread soup or as a side with a salad.
Fresh yeast or dried yeast, and the right loaf tin
We use half a cube of fresh yeast (21 g) because with 60 g of butter it activates more reliably than a packet of dried yeast. Anyone who only has dried yeast at home uses 7 g and dissolves it for one minute longer in the butter step. With the loaf tin, many people make the mistake of using one that is too small. For 750 g of flour we need a 30 cm long tin, not the compact 25 cm one. In the smaller tin the dough spills over the top and loses its typical toast shape. We grease the tin with soft butter; baking paper is optional.
Goes well with: butter, jam and cheese.
Also worth a look: wrapped bread with the Thermomix®.
If you would like to try more home-baked bread, we have further tested recipes for you. Take a look at our spelt loaf, our farmhouse bread or our breakfast rolls. All three follow the same logic as this toast bread: a long prove, precise temperature and patient crust control.
