Bread Machine Buttermilk Bread (Soft White Bread)

This bread machine buttermilk bread recipe produces a white bread that is extra soft. It also has the delicious & slightly tangy taste of buttermilk. You will love this easy buttermilk bread recipe because it only uses a few simple ingredients and the bread machine does most of the work (i.e. kneading)! More importantly, if your family likes buttermilk baked goods (i.e. buttermilk biscuits) then they will love the taste & texture of this soft homemade buttermilk bread.

Bread Machine Buttermilk Bread

What is cultured buttermilk? First, it is not a buttery milk. Rather, cultured buttermilk is a type of fermented milk. Buttermilk is sort of like a liquidy yogurt or thick milk. It also has a slightly sour and pleasantly tangy taste. Moreover, the acid in buttermilk breaks down the gluten in bread dough. This makes buttermilk breads more tender & soft than regular breads… and who doesn’t like soft delicious homemade bread.

Sliced Buttermilk Bread

Since this buttermilk recipe is done in a bread machine or bread maker, it is simple & easy to make. It should take you only 5-10 minutes to prepare and clean up (as your bread machine is doing most of the work). FYI – You will find a printable and “pin-able” recipe at the bottom of the page.

Key Ingredient – Buttermilk

Ingredients – Bread Machine Buttermilk Bread – 1.5 lb Setting

• 1 1/4 Cups – Buttermilk (lukewarm) – 285 milliliters
• 2 Tablespoons – Unsalted Butter (softened) – 29 grams
• 3 Cups – Bread Flour – 360 grams
• 1 1/2 Tablespoon – White Granulated Sugar – 19 grams
• 1 Teaspoon – Salt – 5 milliliters
• 1 Teaspoon – Instant Yeast (Bread Machine Yeast) – 5 milliliters – Not active dry yeast

Ingredients – Bread Machine Buttermilk Bread – 2 lb Setting – See tips section for weight comments

• 1 1/3 Cups – Buttermilk (lukewarm) – 307 milliliters
• 3 Tablespoons – Unsalted Butter (softened) – 43 grams
• 3 1/2 Cups – Bread Flour – 420 grams
• 1 1/2 Tablespoon – White Granulated Sugar – 19 grams
• 1 1/4 Teaspoons – Salt – 6 milliliters
• 1 1/4 Teaspoons – Instant Yeast (Bread Machine Yeast) – 6 milliliters – Not active dry yeast

Servings – Roughly 12 slices

Equipment Needed – Measuring cup & spoons, flexible spatula, oven mitts, wire cooling rack… and of course, a bread machine!

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Instructions – Bread Machine Buttermilk Bread

• Settings – 1.5 lb loaf (1.5 lb, light color and basic bread) and 2 lb loaf (2 lb, light color and basic bread)
• Unplug your bread machine.
• Remove the bread pan from the bread machine (so when you add the ingredients, they can not accidentally spill into the machine).
• Soften the butter in your microwave.
• Pour the buttermilk into the bread pan and then add the other ingredients. Place the bread machine yeast in last and the yeast should not touch the liquid (until the bread machine is turned on and the ingredients start to be mixed together by the bread machine). Put the bread pan with the ingredients back into unplugged bread machine.
• Plug in the bread machine. Enter the correct settings (1.5 lb or 2 lb, light color & basic bread) and press the “start” button.
• When the bread machine has finished baking the bread, unplug the bread machine.
• Take the bread pan out of the bread machine.
• Remove the bread from the bread pan and place it on a cooling rack. Use oven mitts when removing the bread pan from the bread machine because it will be very hot! Let the bread cool down on the cooling rack for at least 1-2 hours.
• After removing the bread, don’t forget to remove the mixing paddle if it is stuck in the bread. Use oven mitts as the mixing paddle will be very hot coming out of the bread machine. Or wait until the bread is completely cooled and then remove the mixing paddle.
• Please read the tips section below for extra information on how to make this recipe successfully.

If you liked this recipe, please leave a comment below & give us a 5 star rating. We LOVE to hear from people who have enjoyed our recipes!! Jump to comment section

Other Bread Dad Sections

• Bread Machines – My favorites
• Bread Machine Cookbooks
• Bread Mixes – Ingredient kits
• Bread Tools – Baguette pans, etc.
• Ingredients – Yeast, flour, etc.
• Other – Sourdough, gluten free, etc.

Tips – Buttermilk Bread Machine Recipe

• The tips below are for buttermilk and bread machine “novices”. Hopefully, these tips will help you to maximize the success of your bread making!
• Click on our “print recipe” link if you want to print out this recipe. It includes all of the recipe’s ingredients and instructions. However, the recipe print function does not include our tips section. Please read the tips section in order to avoid common recipe problems.
• Optional – If you would like to make buttermilk bread without the bread machine mixing “paddle” hole and bread machine “block” shape, you should try our OVEN-baked Buttermilk Bread Recipe. You can make the dough in your bread machine and then finish the bread in an oven. It is the oven version of the recipe on this page.

• This recipe is part of our series on easy Bread Machine Recipes.
• This bread machine recipe produces a very soft white bread with a very mild buttermilk taste. In my non-scientific opinion, this buttermilk bread also seems slightly moister than many bread machine breads. Buttermilk bread is one of my favorite white breads!
• Buttermilk bread is perfect as toast, sandwich bread or even as a side dish to dip into soup, stew, etc. I love using buttermilk bread in order to make a delicious ham & cheese sandwich (with mayo & a little wasabi) for lunch.
• As I said above, buttermilk “tenderizes” bread dough by breaking down the gluten in the dough. I don’t know the science behind this action but it results in a softer bread than most bread machine breads.

• This bread machine buttermilk recipe uses bread machine yeast (instant yeast) and NOT active dry yeast.
• You can usually find buttermilk in the dairy sections of most large supermarkets in the US. However, buttermilk is not as popular as regular milk, soy milk, oat milk, almond milk, etc. Therefore, you might have to do a little searching in the diary section.
• In addition, most of the buttermilks sold in supermarkets are “cultured” low fat buttermilks (versus higher fat old fashioned whole buttermilk). Thanks Dan for pointing out this issue!!!
• This recipe is based on using the cultured buttermilk sold in most supermarkets (vs old fashioned whole buttermilk which is difficult to find).
• If you can’t find buttermilk, you might like to try our Extra Soft Bread Machine Bread recipe or our oven-baked Greek Yogurt Bread. They use Greek yogurt (instead of buttermilk) to tenderize the bread. Greek yogurt also tends to be a little easier to find in the supermarket (versus buttermilk).

• You can also try to make your own buttermilk with some dried buttermilk powder. You can find this on Amazon, King Arthur Baking, etc. Thanks Helen for this tip!
• The 2 lb version is really a 1.75 lb version. I tried making a 2 lb version (with the typical 4 cups of bread flour) but the buttermilk makes the 2 lb bread too fluffy! A 2 lb version rises too high in the bread pan and hits the top of a standard mid-sized bread machine (that is designed for 1.5 lb & 2 lb loaves). Therefore, I created a slightly smaller 1.75 lb version to avoid this problem. The 1.75 lb version tastes great, is nice & soft and is the size of a “normal” (non-buttermilk bread) 2 lb bread loaf. More importantly, it doesn’t hit the top of the bread machine! FYI – Even though the weight is close to 1.75 lbs, you should use the 2 lb bread machine setting when making this version.

• According to Wikipedia, “Cultured buttermilk was first commercially introduced in the United States in the 1920s. Commercially available cultured buttermilk is milk that has been pasteurized and homogenized, and then inoculated with a culture of Lactococcus lactis or Lactobacillus bulgaricus plus Leuconostoc citrovorum to simulate the naturally occurring bacteria in the old-fashioned product. The tartness of cultured buttermilk is primarily due to lactic acid produced by lactic acid bacteria while fermenting lactose, the primary sugar in milk.”
• In contrast, Wikipedia states the following about old fashioned whole buttermilk “Originally, buttermilk referred to the liquid left over from churning butter from cultured or fermented cream. Traditionally, before the advent of homogenization, the milk was left to sit for a period of time to allow the cream and milk to separate. During this time, naturally occurring lactic acid-producing bacteria in the milk fermented it.

• Make sure the buttermilk is well shaken in the carton before you add it to the bread pan. This prevents the buttermilk from being too watery & lacking some buttermilk flavor (or a thick mass if you are near the bottom of the carton).
• Don’t use cold buttermilk because that will inhibit the growth of the yeast. The buttermilk should be lukewarm in temperature. If you use cold buttermilk, your bread may have trouble rising properly.
• However, if you are looking to make a buttery white bread versus a buttermilk white bread, you should try our popular buttery Bread Machine White Bread recipe.
• You can also easily tweak this recipe in order to create a buttermilk herb bread. Just pour in a teaspoon of your family’s favorite herb (i.e. rosemary or Italian seasoning) when adding the dry ingredients to the bread pan.

• This recipe does not have a lot of extra butter because I want a buttermilk bread that tastes of buttermilk.
• I may be crazy but buttermilk bread seems to get even better on the second day after baking (i.e. softer & moister). Do you agree?
• While I much prefer commercially produced buttermilk, some people make a buttermilk substitute by adding a little bit of vinegar to milk. However, in my opinion, the addition of vinegar adds the potential risk of “off notes” (unwanted strange flavors).

• Don’t lift the bread machine cover to “peek” at the dough during the baking stage. This will let out heat & impact the baking process.
• Sometimes a little flour will stick to the sides of the bread pan during the mixing process. Therefore, during the “pause” between the first and second mixing cycle (when the mixing paddle has fully stopped), I like to scrape the flour from the inside of the bread pan with a soft flexible spatula. Of course, always wear oven gloves when dealing with a bread machine & don’t put your hands inside the machine.
• If you have a problem with a “basic” bread machine recipe, please make sure that you are following the recipe exactly (i.e. using the correct bread machine settings), using the correct amount of an ingredient (i.e. don’t eyeball the measurements versus using a measurement cup or accidentally add a tablespoon when a teaspoon is called for), using the correct ingredients (i.e. bread machine yeast versus regular yeast or bread flour versus all purpose flour), etc. Please don’t “wing” things with recipes.
• If you start substituting ingredients (i.e. different types of flour), you are experimenting and should not expect similar results to the recipe shown above. Experimenting can be fun. However, you should expect some successes but more potential disappointments when you start to experiment with recipes. For example, if you substitute whole wheat flour for bread flour, you will probably experience a problem (as whole wheat flour doesn’t rise nearly as well as bread flour). Moreover, whole wheat flour has a totally different flavor.

• If you like buttermilk, you might also like to try out our Buttermilk Banana Bread Recipe.
• Be aware that some bread recipes may differ slightly between different types of bread machines & bread makers. Therefore, please read your bread machine manufacturer’s  instructions for basic bread recipes (i.e. white bread or whole wheat bread) as these are more likely to work on your individual bread machine.
• Before cutting the bread, you should allow it to completely cool. Otherwise, the sliced bread will come out “gummy”. The cooling process is essential for the creation of good breads (because it allows excess moisture to escape as the bread cools). This helps to create a firm and airy bread.

• My recipes are based on US ingredient measurements (i.e. US cups & tablespoons). However, as a courtesy to our European visitors, I have also included some very ROUGH European equivalents (i.e. grams & milliliters). Since I rarely use European measurements when baking, please let me know in the comment section below if any of the European ingredient measurements need to be changed (i.e. for XYZ ingredient, milliliters are more commonly used versus the grams information listed in the recipe).
• Always wear oven mitts/gloves when dealing with a bread machine. The bread pan and the rest of the bread machine can get very hot during the baking process. This means that the bread pan and bread machine is likely to be very hot when you attempt to remove a baked good from the bread machine and/or bread pan.
• For more easy bread ideas, you might like to explore Bread Dad’s Bread Machine Recipes or Homemade Bread Recipes sections.

If you liked this recipe, please leave a comment below & give us a 5 star rating. We LOVE to hear from people who have enjoyed our recipes!! Jump to comment section

Related Bread Dad Sections

• Bread Machines – My favorites
• Bread Machine Cookbooks
• Bread Mixes – Ingredient kits
• Bread Tools – Baguette pans, etc.
• Ingredients – Yeast, flour, etc.
• Other – Sourdough, gluten free, etc.

Reference Sources

• Wikipedia, Bread Machine
• Wikipedia, Buttermilk
• Wikipedia, Flour

Your fantastic comments motivate us to write more easy & delicious recipes. Also beginning bakers learn a ton from your helpful suggestions, tips and amazing recipe variations. Thank you!

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• Bread Machine – French Bread
• Bread Machine – Italian Bread
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• Bread Machine – White Bread
• Buttermilk Bread – Oven baked
• White Bread (Instant Yeast) – Oven baked

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