Air Fryer Bread: Tips for Baking Bread in an Air Fryer
Can you bake bread in an air fryer? Yes, you can, but I think this is one of those times when the internet makes using an air fryer sound rather more straightforward than it really is.
An air fryer is essentially a small, powerful convection oven, which means it can be great for baking smaller loaves and bread rolls. The same thing that makes it useful can also cause problems, though. The heating element is close to your bread, the fan moves hot air around quickly and there is considerably less space than you’d have in a conventional oven.
That means you can end up with a loaf that looks beautifully brown on top while the middle is still doughy.
Rather than giving you one supposedly foolproof air fryer bread recipe and pretending it will work identically in every size and shape of air fryer, I think it’s more useful to look at the things that actually make a difference when you’re baking bread in one.
If you’re completely new to your machine, have a read of my beginner’s guide to using an air fryer first, particularly so you know what your own manufacturer recommends.
1. Don’t make your loaf too big
This is probably the biggest thing I’d think about before baking bread in an air fryer.
It can be tempting to make your usual bread dough, shape it into a loaf and squeeze it into the basket simply because it technically fits. Unfortunately, fitting isn’t really enough.
Air fryer bread, like oven bread, needs room to rise and hot air needs space to circulate around it. You also don’t want the top of a rising loaf getting anywhere near the heating element.
If you have a smaller air fryer, I’d seriously consider making a smaller loaf or dividing your dough into rolls instead.
A slightly smaller loaf that cooks properly is considerably more useful than an enormous one with a lovely crust and raw dough in the middle.
2. Think about the shape as well as the weight
Two loaves made from exactly the same amount of dough won’t necessarily cook at the same speed if one is tall and round while the other is wider and flatter.
The heat needs to reach the middle, so a very thick loaf can be much harder to bake evenly in an air fryer.
This is why copying somebody else’s cooking time isn’t always enough. Their air fryer basket and the shape of their loaf may be completely different from yours.
If you’ve tried air fryer bread before and found the middle wasn’t cooked, making the loaf slightly flatter next time may be more useful than simply leaving the increasingly black crust cooking for another ten minutes!
3. Check how much room your dough has to rise
Remember that you’re putting proved dough into the air fryer, not the finished loaf.
Your air fryer bread can rise further as it cooks, so leave plenty of clearance between the dough and the heating element.
I’d check this before the final prove rather than discovering afterwards that your beautifully risen dough has become too tall for the basket.
4. Be careful with baking parchment
Baking parchment can be useful when you’re handling bread dough because it can make transferring the dough into and out of the basket much easier.
It does need to be used sensibly, though.
Don’t put a loose sheet of parchment into an empty air fryer while it preheats. The fan may lift lightweight parchment towards the heating element.
Check the instructions for your own appliance before using parchment and make sure the dough is actually holding it securely in place when it goes into the basket.
5. Don’t assume oven timings will convert neatly
You’ll sometimes see advice telling you to take an oven bread recipe, reduce the temperature by a particular amount and knock a percentage off the cooking time.
I wouldn’t rely on a formula like that for bread.
An air fryer doesn’t just change the temperature. The loaf may be a different shape, considerably closer to the heating element and surrounded by fast-moving hot air in a much smaller space.
If you’re adapting an oven recipe you already like, I’d treat the first air fryer version as an experiment. Make a smaller loaf, keep notes about what you did and adjust it next time.
It might take a couple of attempts to find what works in your particular machine, but at least you’ll end up with timings you can actually rely on rather than somebody else’s magic percentage.
6. Watch the top of the loaf
One of the problems with baking air fryer bread is that the top can brown much faster than the middle cooks.
Don’t assume a dark golden crust automatically means your bread is ready.
If this happens repeatedly, it may be a sign that the loaf is too large, too tall or being cooked too hot for your particular machine.
You may find that a slightly lower temperature and longer cooking time works better, but I’d change one thing at a time so you can actually work out what made the difference.
Some people cover bread if the top is browning too quickly, but don’t simply throw a loose piece of foil into an air fryer. Check your appliance manufacturer’s instructions before using foil because you don’t want the fan lifting it towards the heating element.
7. Give the hot air room to circulate
Air fryers rely on moving hot air around the food, so don’t completely block that airflow.
This is another reason a loaf that only just squeezes into the basket isn’t necessarily a good idea.
If you’re baking rolls, leave some room between them rather than packing them together so tightly that you’ve essentially created one enormous bread blob anyway.
8. Don’t blame the air fryer for dough that hasn’t risen
Not every bread problem happens during baking.
If your finished bread is very dense, think about what happened to the dough beforehand too.
Was your yeast still in date? Did the dough have enough time to rise? Was your kitchen particularly cold? Did you add loads of extra flour because the dough felt sticky?
Bread proving times are guides rather than appointments. If a recipe says an hour but your dough hasn’t risen properly after an hour, it doesn’t know that the timer has gone off.
Give the dough the time it actually needs.
9. Start with bread you already understand
If you’re completely new to making bread, learning how dough should feel at exactly the same time as learning how your air fryer bakes it gives you two sets of variables to contend with.
If you already have a basic bread dough or bread-roll recipe you know works, that’s a sensible starting point for experimenting with the air fryer.
You can then concentrate on loaf size, temperature and cooking time rather than wondering whether the problem was the dough itself.
If you’re interested in the different flours you could use, my white bread vs brown bread guide explains some of the differences.
10. Keep notes when you experiment
This sounds ridiculously organised for a loaf of bread, but it can save a lot of frustration.
Write down roughly how much dough you used, how you shaped it, the temperature, how long it cooked and what you’d change next time.
If it was perfectly cooked after 22 minutes, you don’t want to find yourself three weeks later staring into the air fryer thinking, “Was it 180°C? Or was that the roast potatoes?”
Once you’ve worked out what works in your machine, making it again becomes much easier.
Can you make bread rolls in an air fryer?
Bread rolls can actually be a really sensible place to start because smaller pieces of dough don’t have such a thick centre to cook through.
You still need to leave room for them to expand and for air to circulate, but you’re less likely to have the problem of a beautifully browned outside hiding a doughy centre.
I wouldn’t give you a universal temperature and cooking time without testing a specific roll recipe, though. The size of the rolls and the air fryer you’re using will make a difference.
Can you make wholemeal bread in an air fryer?
There’s no reason the air fryer itself prevents you using wholemeal flour, but changing the flour can change the dough.
Wholemeal flour can absorb liquid differently from white bread flour, so I’d follow a bread recipe designed for the flour you’re using rather than taking a white loaf recipe and making random substitutions.
The air fryer is responsible for baking your bread; it can’t rescue a dough recipe that wasn’t quite right in the first place.
Why is my air fryer bread raw in the middle?
If the outside looks cooked but the centre is still doughy, the first things I’d look at are the size and shape of the loaf.
A loaf that’s too large or too tall can brown long before enough heat has reached the centre.
You may also be cooking at too high a temperature for your particular air fryer.
Next time, try a smaller or flatter loaf, or reduce the temperature slightly and allow more time. Don’t change everything at once or you’ll have no idea which change actually helped.
Is an air fryer better than an oven for baking bread?
I don’t think there is a universal winner here.
An air fryer can make a lot of sense for a small loaf or a few rolls because you’re heating a much smaller appliance. If you’re making several loaves or a large batch of rolls, the capacity of a conventional oven suddenly becomes rather useful.
I’d choose based on what you’re actually baking rather than trying to prove that one appliance is always better than the other. Air fryer bread can be a quick easy way to make a small amount of bread but will never be as good for a huge batch of bread!
More things to try in your air fryer
Bread is a good example of why I think air fryers are more interesting once you get beyond simply making chips in them. There are loads of everyday foods you can experiment with, although some work considerably better than others.
Have a look through my air fryer recipes and cooking tips for everything I’ve brought together so far, including air fryer cheese toasties, eggs in the air fryer, vegetables, potatoes and plenty of other ideas.
