Types of Bread: A Baker's Guide to the Main Styles
Almost every bread in the world sorts into a handful of families, and three numbers tell you which family you're looking at: what leavens it, how much water it holds (hydration), and how much fat, sugar, egg, or dairy it carries (enrichment). Baguette, ciabatta, brioche, and soda bread differ far less in ingredients than they do in those three numbers.
Get those numbers and you can identify a bread, predict its crumb, and know roughly what oven temperature it wants, without ever seeing the method.
Every ratio on this page is by weight, and our free ingredient weight chart converts any of them into cups and grams for 57 baking ingredients.
Updated September 2026
The three numbers behind every bread
Bakers describe bread in baker's percentage: every ingredient stated as a percentage of the flour weight, with flour always at 100%. It sounds fussy and it's the single most useful habit in bread baking, because it makes any two recipes directly comparable. Our baker's percentage guide covers the math in full.
1. Leavening. Commercial yeast, a sourdough starter, chemical leavening (baking soda or powder), steam alone, or nothing. This is the biggest fork in the road, and it's the difference between a yeast bread and a quick bread. If the whole idea of leavening is new, start with what is leavening in baking.
2. Hydration. Water as a percentage of flour weight. A stiff bagel dough sits near 55%. A sandwich loaf lands around 62 to 65%. Ciabatta runs 75 to 85%. Higher hydration means a wetter, stickier dough, a more open and irregular crumb, and a thinner, crisper crust.
3. Enrichment. Fat, sugar, eggs, and dairy as a percentage of flour weight. A lean dough has essentially none. A brioche can carry 50 to 80% butter and 15% sugar. Enrichment makes bread softer, richer, and slower to stale, and it also slows the yeast down and gives you a tighter, more cake-like crumb.
| Bread family | Hydration | Enrichment | Crumb you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean and rustic | 70 to 85% | 0 to 2% | Open, irregular, chewy, crisp crust |
| Lean and structured | 55 to 65% | 0 to 5% | Tight and dense, very chewy |
| Soft pan breads | 60 to 70% | 8 to 20% | Even, fine, soft, thin crust |
| Enriched | 45 to 65% | 30 to 90% | Tight, tender, shreddable, soft crust |
| Quick breads | Batter, not dough | Varies widely | Cakey, tender, no chew |
Types of bread, sorted by style
This is the reference table. Hydration figures are typical ranges, not rules, and the temperature column is the usual starting oven temperature for that style.
| Style | Leavening | Flour | Hydration | Enrichment | Crumb and crust | Typical bake temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baguette | Yeast, often with a preferment | Bread or T65 | 65 to 72% | None | Open irregular crumb, thin crackly crust | 460 to 480°F with steam |
| Ciabatta | Yeast plus a wet biga | Bread or 00 | 75 to 85% | 0 to 3% olive oil | Very open, glossy holes, flour-dusted crust | 450 to 475°F with steam |
| Country sourdough | Sourdough starter | Bread plus 10 to 20% whole grain | 72 to 82% | None | Open, custardy, chewy, thick dark crust | 480 to 500°F, covered then uncovered |
| Focaccia | Yeast | Bread or 00 | 75 to 85% | 8 to 15% olive oil | Airy, oil-fried bottom, dimpled top | 425 to 450°F |
| Neapolitan pizza | Yeast, long ferment | 00 | 58 to 65% | None | Puffy rim, thin base, leopard spotting | 800 to 900°F wood oven |
| Bagel | Yeast, boiled before baking | High-gluten | 52 to 58% | Malt, sometimes 2 to 4% sugar | Very tight and chewy, shiny skin | 450 to 500°F |
| Pretzel | Yeast, alkaline dip | Bread | 55 to 60% | 2 to 5% butter | Dense chew, mahogany skin | 425 to 450°F |
| US sandwich loaf | Yeast | Bread or all-purpose | 62 to 68% | 5 to 12% fat, 4 to 8% sugar, milk | Even fine crumb, soft thin crust | 350 to 375°F |
| Pain de mie | Yeast, baked in a lidded pan | Bread | 60 to 65% | 8 to 12% butter, milk | Square slices, very fine crumb, almost no crust | 350 to 375°F |
| Japanese milk bread | Yeast plus a cooked flour paste | Bread | 70 to 78% total | 10 to 15% butter, 10% sugar | Feathery, pull-apart shreds, cloud soft | 340 to 350°F |
| Brioche | Yeast | Bread or all-purpose | 45 to 55% liquid from eggs | 50 to 80% butter, 10 to 15% sugar | Tight, tender, rich yellow | 350 to 375°F |
| Challah | Yeast | Bread | 50 to 58% | 10 to 20% oil, 10 to 15% sugar, eggs | Shreddable, slightly dry, braided | 350°F |
| Whole wheat pan loaf | Yeast | 50 to 100% whole wheat | 70 to 80% | 5 to 10% fat and honey | Tighter, nutty, softer gluten | 350 to 375°F |
| Deli rye | Yeast plus sour | Bread plus 20 to 40% rye | 65 to 72% | None to 3% | Moderately tight, tangy, caraway | 425°F falling to 375°F |
| Pumpernickel | Sourdough, very long steam bake | Coarse whole rye | 80%+ | None | Nearly black, dense, sticky, sweet | 250 to 300°F for many hours |
| Irish soda bread | Baking soda plus buttermilk | Soft or all-purpose | 65 to 75% | 0 to 10% butter | Crumbly, scone-like, thick crust | 400 to 425°F |
| Cornbread | Baking powder or soda | Cornmeal plus flour | Batter | 15 to 30% fat | Crumbly, tender, no chew | 400 to 425°F |
| Banana bread and similar | Baking soda or powder | All-purpose | Batter | Very high | Cakey and moist | 325 to 350°F |
| Biscuits and scones | Baking powder | Soft or self-rising | 55 to 70% | 25 to 40% cold fat | Flaky layers, tender, short | 425 to 450°F |
| Pita | Yeast | Bread or all-purpose | 60 to 65% | 0 to 3% oil | Puffs into a pocket, thin and soft | 500°F+ on a hot surface |
| Naan | Yeast plus yogurt | All-purpose | 60 to 68% | Yogurt, ghee, sometimes egg | Blistered, chewy, soft | Very high, tandoor or skillet |
| Tortilla (flour) | None or a little baking powder | All-purpose | 50 to 60% | 10 to 20% fat | Thin, pliable, soft | Dry skillet, no oven |
| Matzo | None | All-purpose | 40 to 50% | None | Flat, hard, cracker-like | 500°F+ for minutes |
Lean breads: flour, water, salt, yeast
A lean dough is four ingredients. Nothing softens it, so everything you taste comes from fermentation and from the crust.
What defines the family: enrichment at or near zero, hydration usually above 65%, and a bake at high heat with steam for the first part. The steam keeps the surface soft long enough for the loaf to expand, then evaporates so the crust can dry, brown, and crackle.
Baguette is the benchmark. Low protein by American standards (a French T65 sits around 11%), a preferment for flavor, and a crumb with holes of varied size. A real baguette goes stale in hours, which is a feature of having no fat in it.
Ciabatta is a baguette dough pushed to 80% water. That much water means the dough is poured and folded rather than kneaded, and the crumb ends up with the big glossy caverns the style is known for.
Country sourdough swaps commercial yeast for a starter and usually adds 10 to 20% whole wheat or rye for the bacteria to feed on. The acid it develops does two useful things: it strengthens the gluten and it slows staling, so a sourdough loaf keeps days longer than a baguette.
Focaccia is technically lean plus oil. The oil goes both into the dough and generously under and over it, so the bottom effectively fries in the pan.
Bagels and pretzels are the odd members: lean but very low hydration and very high protein, worked hard to build maximum gluten. Both get a pre-bake bath, boiling water with malt for bagels and an alkaline dip for pretzels, which sets the skin before the oven and gives each its signature chew and color.
Enriched breads: fat, sugar, eggs, dairy
Add fat and sugar to a lean dough and three things change at once. The crumb tightens and softens, the crust goes pale and thin instead of crackly, and the bread stays fresh for days instead of hours. Fat coats gluten strands and shortens them, which is where the word "shortening" comes from.
Brioche is the extreme. At 50 to 80% butter by flour weight, it's closer to a pastry than a loaf. That much fat slows fermentation badly, which is why enriched doughs need more yeast, more time, or an osmotolerant yeast strain.
Challah uses oil and eggs rather than butter, which keeps it dairy free and gives it a drier, more shreddable texture that braids cleanly.
Japanese milk bread (shokupan) gets its texture from a technique rather than an ingredient: a small portion of the flour is cooked with liquid into a paste first, which lets the dough hold far more water without turning slack. The result stays soft for days.
US sandwich bread sits at the mild end, with a little sugar, a little fat, and often milk. That's enough to soften the crumb for slicing and toasting without making it taste sweet.
Sugar above about 10% of the flour weight starts pulling water out of the yeast by osmosis and slows the rise noticeably. That's the practical dividing line between a lightly sweet loaf and a genuinely sweet dough that needs the yeast adjusted. There's more on that in active dry vs instant yeast.
Whole grain and rye styles
Whole wheat flour includes the bran and germ. The bran is sharp and physically cuts gluten strands, and the germ brings oil and enzymes. Both mean a whole grain loaf rises less and comes out tighter than a white loaf at the same hydration.
Two things compensate. Whole wheat absorbs more water, so hydration typically goes up 5 to 10 percentage points. And an autolyse, a rest of the flour and water before the salt and yeast go in, softens the bran and makes the dough far more workable.
Rye is a different problem. Rye has very little gluten-forming protein and a lot of pentosans, gums that hold enormous amounts of water and make the dough sticky rather than stretchy. Rye breads get their structure from those gums, not from gluten, and they're almost always acidified with a sour to keep enzymes from turning the crumb gummy.
That's why the rye family runs from a deli rye at 20 to 40% rye flour, which still behaves mostly like wheat bread, all the way to a true pumpernickel at 100% coarse rye baked at 250 to 300°F for as long as 16 hours. For flour protein numbers across the board, see types of flour.
Flatbreads, leavened and not
Flatbreads split by whether anything is raising them.
Leavened flatbreads include pita, naan, and pizza. Pita is the clearest demonstration of steam leavening: rolled thin and slapped onto a 500°F+ surface, the outside sets instantly, the water inside flashes to steam, and the whole disc inflates into a balloon that collapses into a pocket as it cools.
Unleavened flatbreads include matzo, chapati, lavash, and most flour tortillas. Tortillas often carry a pinch of baking powder for tenderness rather than lift, and their softness comes from fat (traditionally lard) rather than from gas.
Flatbreads are also where hydration behaves differently. Because they're thin, they don't need a strong gas-holding web, so doughs run lower and stiffer than a comparable loaf.
Quick breads: the chemically leavened family
A quick bread has no yeast and no rise time. Baking soda or baking powder makes the gas in seconds, so the batter goes straight into the oven.
The family covers banana bread, cornbread, zucchini bread, Irish soda bread, biscuits, scones, muffins, and pancakes. What they share is a deliberate avoidance of gluten: you mix them as little as possible, because chew is the last thing you want.
Irish soda bread is the closest thing to a real loaf in this family. Soft wheat flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and salt. The buttermilk is the acid that activates the soda, and the whole thing has to go into a hot oven within a minute or two of mixing, because single-acting reactions start losing gas immediately.
The dose ceilings are the same as for any chemical leavening: about 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of flour, or about 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per cup. Go over and you get a metallic taste and a rise that collapses. The full comparison is in baking soda vs baking powder.
Biscuits and scones often use self-rising flour, which is soft wheat flour with the baking powder and salt already in it.
Worked example: what hydration actually looks like
Take 500 g of bread flour, which is 4 cups spooned and leveled at 125 g per cup on our ingredient weight chart. Salt stays at 2% throughout, which is 10 g, and yeast at 0.5%, which is 2.5 g. Only the water changes.
| Hydration | Water | Total dough | What the dough feels like | Style it becomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55% | 275 g | 787 g | Stiff, barely tacky, hard to knead | Bagel, pretzel |
| 65% | 325 g | 837 g | Smooth, slightly tacky, easy to shape | Sandwich loaf, baguette |
| 75% | 375 g | 887 g | Slack and sticky, needs folds not kneading | Rustic sourdough |
| 85% | 425 g | 937 g | Pourable, cannot be hand-shaped dry | Ciabatta, focaccia |
The gap between the top and bottom row is 150 g of water, about 2/3 of a cup. That's the entire difference between a bagel and a ciabatta at the ingredient level, and it changes the crumb from nearly solid to full of holes.
Two honest caveats. Different flours drink different amounts, and a 75% dough in bread flour can feel like an 80% dough in all-purpose. And whole grain flours absorb noticeably more, so the same percentage feels much drier. Our guide to bread flour vs all-purpose covers the swap in both directions.
Bake temperature and doneness by family
Bread is done at an internal temperature, not at a color or a time. The oven temperature varies enormously by style, but the finish line is narrow.
| Family | Internal temp when done | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Lean and rustic | 205 to 210°F | Needs to hit the high end or the crumb stays gummy |
| Soft pan breads | 190 to 195°F | Pulling early keeps them softer |
| Enriched (brioche, milk bread) | 185 to 190°F | Overbaking dries them out fast |
| Rye | 200 to 208°F | Rest at least 24 hours before slicing |
| Quick breads | 200 to 205°F | Or a clean skewer in the center |
Lean breads want high heat and steam. Enriched breads want moderate heat with no steam, because the sugar and dairy brown early and the loaf can be dark outside and raw inside at 425°F. Our guide on how to tell when bread is done covers the tests.
Frequently asked questions
What are the main different types of bread?
They sort into five families: lean rustic breads (baguette, ciabatta, sourdough), structured lean breads (bagels, pretzels), soft pan breads (sandwich loaves, pain de mie), enriched breads (brioche, challah, milk bread), and chemically leavened quick breads (soda bread, cornbread, biscuits). Flatbreads sit across several of those depending on whether they're leavened.
What's the difference between a yeast bread and a quick bread?
Yeast bread is raised by living yeast over 1 to 24 hours or longer, and that time builds both gluten and flavor. A quick bread is raised by baking soda or baking powder in seconds and goes straight into the oven. Yeast breads are chewy, quick breads are tender and cakey.
What is hydration in bread baking?
Hydration is the water in a dough expressed as a percentage of the flour weight. A 500 g flour, 350 g water dough is 70% hydration. Higher hydration gives a more open, irregular crumb and a crisper crust, and a stickier dough that's harder to handle.
Which type of bread is the healthiest?
Whole grain breads carry more fiber, more minerals, and more of the germ's nutrients than white, and long-fermented sourdough breaks down some of the phytic acid that blocks mineral absorption. Enriched breads carry the most fat and sugar. The label is more useful than the name on the front, since plenty of loaves sold as multigrain are mostly white flour.
What flour should each type of bread use?
Chewy lean breads and bagels want high protein, 12 to 14%, for maximum gluten. Sandwich loaves and enriched breads do fine at 11 to 13%. Biscuits, scones, and soda bread want soft flour at 8 to 9%. Pizza traditionally uses finely milled 00 flour, which is about protein and grind together.
Why is my bread dense no matter the style?
Underproofing is the usual cause, followed by too little water, dead yeast, and too much flour added during shaping. Weighing the flour instead of scooping it fixes a surprising share of dense loaves on its own, since scoop-and-sweep adds about 20 g per cup. See why is my bread dense for the full checklist.
Is sourdough a type of bread or a method?
Both, really. As a method it means raising bread with a wild yeast and bacteria culture instead of commercial yeast, and you can apply it to almost any style, including brioche and pizza. As a style, sourdough usually refers to a lean, high-hydration country loaf with a dark crust.
What's the difference between a loaf and a flatbread?
Structure. A loaf has enough gluten and enough gas to hold a tall shape while it bakes. A flatbread is either rolled thin on purpose or made from a dough that can't hold that structure, and it bakes fast at high heat. Some flatbreads are fully leavened, like pita and naan, and some have no leavening at all.
Related guides: Types of flour | Baker's percentage | What is leavening in baking | Bread flour vs all-purpose | How to tell when bread is done | Ingredient weight chart
