Bread Ingredients & Equipment

Bread Machine

I use a Hamilton Beach bread machine. $60-70 bucks new. If you want to go more high end you can get a Zojirushi one but I'm happy with this one (especially since I mostly use it for dough and Zojirushi apparently excels when you bake the bread in the machine).

"Hamilton Beach Bread Maker Machine 2 Lb Capacity Digital, Programmable, 12 Settings + Gluten Free, Dishwasher Safe Pan + 2 Kneading Paddles, Black (29882)" on Amazon.

Other Tools

Measuring Cup: "OXO Good Grips 2-Cup Angled Measuring Cup" on Amazon. Anything is fine it's just a cup.

Dough cutting knife: "OXO Stainless Steel Good Grips Multi-Purpose Scraper & Chopper, 1 Count" on Amazon. Actually not this exact one, I got a random one that I don't remember the name of. But they're all about the same, they're just knives. Get one with a ruler on the edge though.

Apron: Optional, I don't use one. Pour flour with caution.

Paper towels: Lots to keep your workspace clean!

Measuring

I'm not a big stickler on measuring... if it's close enough it's usually going to turn out fine and yummy!

The only important thing is: do not pack your flour down or even wiggle it around to try to level it out as you're measuring it. Scoop it into the measuring cup, and just leave it. Fancy people will tell you to level it off with a knife to be exact, I usually just eyeball it.

An easy way to eyeball things with vague accuracy is to keep in mind what your last measure is going to be. If you need 2 1/2 cups and your measuring cup goes up to 2, then you'll need a 2-cup amount and then another 1/2 cup. So just eyeball your excess and aim for a correspondingly less amount in your final cup. Then, if you go a bit high on your 2-cup, you can simply make your 1/2 cup a bit less.

If you DO want to be exact, do the knife thing, or even better, convert my numbers to grams and measure it out with a scale.

I personally find that the added deliciousness from measuring with great precision is not really worth the time and effort it takes...

Subtitutions & Details

Generally speaking, for ingredients:

Eggs

Any large egg is probably fine.

Milk

Any kind of milk is probably fine, I use 2%. Maybe don't use an entirely non-fat milk. Not sure how well non-cow milks work, I imagine other animals are probably OK, plant-based milks are probably not going to work very well.

Salt

Any kind of salt is probably fine, I use Costco's Kirkland fine grain sea salt.

Instant Yeast

I use Fleischmann's instant yeast. "RapidRise" and comes in a jar.

You can probably use any yeast that's "instant" and doesn't require activation.

Flour

I generally use bread flour, specifically King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour. About $1/lb ($5 for a 5 lb bag). Regular flour is usually fine too, bread flour tastes marginally better to me.

Sugar

I'll generally mention this but if a recipe calls for brown sugar you can use regular sugar too and it'll probably be fine. Light or dark or whatever doesn't matter that much.