Bread Recipe – Without Yeast

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There are all sorts of creative ways to make bread without yeast. You might ask, “Why would I want to know how to make bread without yeast?” Maybe for the sake of preparedness – simply knowing how to make due without yeast…

This is very basic ‘bread’, but it works, and it’s edible.

Here’s how to make it:

 
The final product is pictured above. I have previously posted the recipe in an article titled, “How To Make Basic Bread From Dough Without Yeast”, however I thought I would add more pictures in this post, along with more details, as well as a request for you to share your own creations and recipes for bread (with no yeast).

This is an edible bread from basic ingredients that have a good shelf life without the requirement for refrigeration or without yeast. The results are not going to be the traditional fluffy bread you’re used to, but it’s not too bad… Surprisingly (given the ingredients) the bread has a consistency crossing between actual traditional bread and a biscuit. Certainly not a light and fluffy bread, but it’s not a brick either.

 

Bread Ingredients & Shelf Life

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Flour. Unopened bags of white flour will generally stay fresh up to one year. As the flour gets older it will eventually develop a bad taste, and then go rancid. For a shelf life up to ‘decades’, store ‘wheat berries’ (not having been milled yet). When it’s time to make bread, you will need to mill the wheat into flour – with a flour mill.

Baking Powder. First of all, I prefer ‘aluminum free’ baking powder for health safety (aluminum is thought to contribute to Alzheimer’s). The shelf life of unopened baking powder is generally indefinite, depending on the storage environment (which needs to be dry so moisture won’t penetrate its packaging over time). Once you open a container of baking powder its potency starts to diminish (from moisture in the air). So if you keep your ‘working’ baking powder in a sealed dry container, its effectiveness ‘should’ last for quite a long time. It’s the opening and closing and then reopening and closing that allows more and more moisture to be absorbed into the baking powder over time which eventually reduces its effectiveness. With that said, their ‘best-by’ dates are generally one year within its original hard-pressed cardboard packaging.

Oil. The recipe calls for extra-virgin olive oil. Pretty much all oils have a general shelf life of about one year – although cool and dark storage conditions will extend that. Eventually, oil will go rancid. You keep store oil in a freezer for longer shelf life.

Water. You either have it, or you don’t…

 

Bread Recipe (no yeast)

 
1. Add to a bowl 3 cups flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt.

2. Begin to mix while adding 1/3 cup of oil (extra virgin olive oil).

3. Continue to mix while adding 3/4 cup of warm water. I start with a wooden spoon and finish working the dough with my hands. If necessary, continue to add more water a little at a time until the mixture holds together and will roll into a ball while barely sticky. If it becomes too soupy, just add a bit more flour. Etc..

(You can be creative and add pretty much anything to the dough for an enhanced bread – maybe some herbs, nuts, whatever floats your boat)

4. Grease an oven-proof dish (8″ x 4″ bread loaf pan, for example) and flatten the dough into the dish. Then flip the dough to get oil/grease on both sides of bread.

5. If you have foil, cover tightly (holds in the moisture). Bake at 375 F for 20 minutes. Then check it. I like to sprinkle some sea-salt on top at this point. You will likely need to continue cooking for another 10 to 20 minutes – just check for a golden top, and it should spring back when touched. I uncover the foil after 30 minutes to assist baking a golden top. Your times may vary depending on your oven and its temperature calibration.

 
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bread-dough-ball

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That’s it! Simple. Next time you might add two or three tablespoons of sugar for sweetness…

Note: The bread dough appears to double in size throughout the baking process.

Note: Approximately 2,000 total calories (1,365 flour, 635 oil)

 
If you’re looking for Sourdough, here’s an article on that:
Sourdough Starter Recipe Without Yeast From Scratch

Classic Sourdoughs: A Home Baker’s Handbook
Classic Sourdoughs Handbook

54 Comments

  1. Looks tasty, Ken. And, you managed to toss in good bits of info (shelf life flour/oil/etc..) which is appreciated.

    curious, would a slice of this hold together enough to slide in an ordinary toaster?

    1. Yes, it’s dense enough to hold together when sliced gently back-and-forth with a bread knife. (Lots of people tend to push while they slice – which is incorrect and may smash the bread)

      1. Using a knife with a serrated edge makes cutting bread easy.

        You can sharpen serrated edged knives. Easily. Get a two stage knife sharpener. I have the “Wüsthof 2 Stage Knife Sharpener”. Has two grooves. Coarse for getting the angle set, fine for sharpening. Use the ‘fine’ groove only on serrated knives.

        1. My bread did not turn out well
          It had an strong olive oil taste and was more like a biscuit than bread.

        2. Yes, it’s definitely more like biscuit bread, certainly not traditional bread. But for preparedness sake – it’s not too bad ;)

  2. oh yes..appreciate the extra pics. helps me to get it all sorted out, know if mine is turning out as should (I do plan to give it a try).

  3. I have been making my own sourdough bread, with starter I made from scratch. It “harvests” the wild yeast from the flour and also the air. Different locations (states, regions) have different strains of wild yeast. So where ever you live the starter will acquire the local wild yeast flavor.

    1. @ Doc Jackson
      Interesting you mention “wild yeast”. Being a Brewer and a member of a local Brewers Club we have a annual competition on “Wild Yeast” beer. It’s amazing the flavors that can come from these yeast’s. We have actually sent a few to National Competition’s in the effort to gain a Gold Metal, unfortunately only a Bronze so far :-( but that’s not so bad out of 150+ entries :-)

      1. @NRP
        Sounds great! I enjoy a nice cold one. We have lots of micro brewers here in the northwest.

        My favorite sourdough is in SF.I have been trying to get that same taste but I think it’s a regional thing.

        I had one starter for about a year, but I dropped the glass jar. Look up “friends of Carl”. you can get a dehydrated starter dating back to 1847. It takes a lot of nurturing to get good. But you know that being a brewer. Good thing to know.

        1. The yeast spores in San Francisco are unique to that region. This is where sourdough bread started. If you ever go there on a vacation ect you could start a sourdough yeast batch there and keep it alive at home. Some have been in process for years.

        2. Sourdough has been used for thousands of years. I don’t think SF has been around that long.

      2. I’ve heard of people taking fresh picked leave, berries, or fruits and putting them in a jar of recently boiled sugar water to start culturing wild yeast.

        1. I did that a few weeks ago. Less than a week from fruit to bread, rather than a month and three pounds of wasted flour. Works for me!

  4. Have you read the ingredients on a loaf of store bought bread recently? They all use sugar or, much worse, high fructose corn syrup. The bread that Ken is describing is probably a lot healthier.

    1. You move, think and exist thanks to sugar. It is essential for life. There isn’t a dimes worth of difference between HFCS and table sugar. Ironically all carbs, including table sugar and hfcs is converted to glucose and your body doesn’t know if it came from organic orange juice or a coke with HFCS.

      1. I agree that sugars are required for life. I absolutely don’t agree that table sugar and HFCS are the same. HFCS is created from Glucose and other ingredients. Gives your body something to do converting it back to Glucose. If you really want Fructose, try honey.

        In an act of Christian, which I’m not, Charity I’ll leave products containing HFCS on the shelf for you and those like minded.

        Perhaps you should request, no, demand that your HFCS products be made from ‘real’ Monsanto GMO corn.

  5. Now I’ll still be able to enjoy a BLT or Peanut Butter and jelly after the SHTF!!! Or French toast!!! LOL!!

    Thanks!!

    1. Naw, just add a little Tomato Power, some Dehydrated Lettuce, a few FD Bacon bits, a sprinkle of Cheese Powder and POOF, ya got yarself a BLTC sam-age…. hehehe,

  6. Looks like bread I made once with a little brown sugar, wild raspberries, wild blueberries and walnuts as “survival bread” when that was all I had during my pay off my debt period.

  7. I am currently using flour that is 4 years old and it is not rancid… to store regular flour, any brand…I Do freeze it for two weeks. then I allow to come to room temp for a couple days…this allows any moisture to evaporate… then I empty in a bucket, been using 5 gallon ones, but trying to make things lighter…35 lbs can be packed, loose, in a five gallon food grade bucket..I put 3 or four large oxygen absorbers, one near the bottom one about midway and one or two near the top. You can also add a bay leaf or two to discourage any new bugs from entering after the bucket is opened… I seal with several circles of a good quality duct tape. This may not be the best grade flour to use, but it will make a biscuit and gravy with the above ingredients…
    Also you can make baking powder with baking soda, cream of tartar and cornstarch…all three have indefinite shelf life…just store them in air tight jars to prevent rodent/bugs from eating too.

  8. You can find a great sourdough recipe in the Complete Tightwad Gazette. I have tried a number of SD recipes. This is the best and so simple. Once you have it started, you never need to buy yeast again.

  9. Any good hard-tack recipes? Dense edibles will store longer which is why it was a trail ride favorite I assume.

  10. That is the perfect thing to go with spam or tactical bacon. Thanks Ken.

  11. In a disaster or loss of everything fast easy is also to make flour tortillas. Just add water. Can get in pre packs in stores along with corn breads and other easy to make breads just add water. FOLKS JUST A NOTE HERE after the severe flooding of SC many people do not have water. That is why Preps need water to survive disasters and foods to bail out with.

    1. So you’re saying this bread is hard enough to bail with? :) Speaking of floods.

  12. I will admit right here that I have made yeast bread that didn’t rise any higher than this bread.Seems I used salt in a glass jar that I thought was sugar.One of my first tries at homemade bread…LOL! I’m still using it for a door stop.
    I bet this bread would go good with soup or chili…or with a can of SMEAT…

  13. This recipe is the same for rolled biscuits. You can take this same dough,roll it out to about 1 inch thick and use a glass to cut round biscuits.

  14. How would you make it in a dutch oven? It is a skill I’d like to learn as I doubt that my electric one would be operational.
    Question on the oil and calories. Is Extra virgin oil low calorie? My Costco says 140 calories per ounce the recipe calls for 1/3 of a cup.
    I know that a large percentage of the world fries with rancid oil as they have no other option due to supply. Taste of the food suffers but no ill effects as the oil is heated to such a high temp. So my question on this is could you use rancid oil in the recipe?

  15. I bet that would back really nice in a Dutch oven in the backyard. You might have to sit and watch it in case those pesky non-prepping neighbors happened to stop by!

  16. Is this the same as “hard tack” that used to be the standard fare for soldiers and sailors?

    1. No. Hardtack or Ship’s biscuit is flour and water. That’s it. Salt is usually added now, but historically, no salt. It makes a VERY HARD, dense, cracker like bread. It will literally last forever if kept dry. I’ve made some, myself. It’s easy to make, hard to eat! :D It tastes good, though. The idea is to soak it (a LONG time) in soup or whatever to make it more chewable. I’ve taken it and busted it up with a hammer to make more like flakes to make it easier to eat.

  17. Congratulations Ken, You have discovered the joys of “Self Rising Flour” (also referred to as pre-sifted flour) which is the basis for all forms of “Quick breads” to include pancakes, cakes, muffins and cookie dough. I noticed your basic recipe was missing salt.

    Pre-sifted flour also can be frozen and it will still rise when in the oven. Most of the frozen pizzas out there are made with the baking powder and salt bread recipe as opposed to using yeast.

  18. Is the oil considered necessary? I have made simple bread before with flour, water, salt, and yeast (and I think it’s good… very pretzel like, and I can live on pretzels).

  19. I have packaged flour in five pound mylar bags with 300 cc oxygen absorbers removing as much air as possible before sealing the bags. I have read that packaged like this it can last up to 20 years, other sites say 10 years, yet others say as little as 2 years. The flour is just a general purpose white flour. Anyone have experience storing flour like this? How long were you able to store it before going bad? what is the best way to tell if it has gone bad?

  20. I made this tonight – added some fresh rosemary and some cinnamon sugar! It was DELISH! Thanks so much for sharing.. will definitely be making this again!

    1. I like the cinnamon sugar idea… will try that sometime…
      Glad it was of interest to you ;)

  21. Concerns about aluminum in your baking powder are unfounded.
    The connection between aluminum and Alzheimer’s is a myth.
    It has been shown that aluminum does not contribute to your risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease.

    -I would greatly appreciate it if the author removed this erroneous health information

    1. As the expression goes, “better safe than sorry”.

      Why would I prefer that aluminum be included in my baking powder? No thanks. I’ll take mine without.

    2. Then you will be happy to know that aluminum is also raining down on us from chem trails……

  22. can this bread be used with whole wheat flour or would it be hard as a brick? Or other kinds of gluten free flour?

    1. I used different kinds of flour mixes, including whole wheat, and whole grain rye flour. They all came out fine. Very compact, and filling, not too hard. Experiment. You can always use half and half, if you want the health benefits but don’t like the way it comes out 100% whole grain.

  23. Thanks for this. I make it whenever my boss is late in paying me, haha. A real lifesaver.

  24. Added touch of salt & 1tbsp sugar.
    Additional 15m to achieve golden crust.
    Made round instead of loaf.
    Turned out well.

  25. Hi all,
    I made this during the 2020 Pandemic, as I was out of yeast. The finished loaf raised to about three times its original size. I also added finely sliced raw white onion, greased a small frying pan with butter, and substituted about a tablespoon of Lawry’s Salt for the regular salt. I also put additional (finely) chopped onions on top with a bit of Margarita salt.

    The one other thing I did was uncover the bread after 30 minutes and let it bake an addition 15 minutes, or so, to brown the crust.

    Really good! Thanks for the recipe.

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