Simple Homemade Wheat Bread Recipe

This is a great, simple recipe that can be quickly thrown together multiple times a week for the perfect, from-scratch, whole wheat bread recipe. It’s a half wheat, half white flour recipe with a slightly nutty flavor, a hint of sweetness from the honey, and the perfect texture. I love that this recipe is so versatile that it can be sliced as an addition to a cozy soup dinner or hold perfectly for spread and sandwiches. I make this recipe multiple times a week in our home. If you’re on the hunt for the perfect recipe to jump into making bread at home, you’ve come to the right place. 

Baking homemade wheat bread is something I have done for years! I’m not going to pretend like I am a professional, nor have I had any formal training. But growing up in our family, it was one of my weekly chores. And I now make this specific recipe multiple times a week for my own family. 

Back as a teenager, my bread baking was a combination of by-hand recipes and using my handy bread maker (ask me for tips some time, I have some tricks up my sleeve for better bread maker bread). Nowadays I have graduated to my KitchenAid, and I don’t think I’ll ever look back. It’s absolutely simplified my bread process, and I utilize it for so many things in my kitchen.

Does that mean you have to have a KitchenAid mixer to make this recipe? Absolutely not! As I said, it’s simple. But it will include a bit more elbow grease if you choose to make it by hand since the KitchenAid does so much of the work. But it’s completely up to you. 

The perfect wheat bread recipe for the beginner homemaker, or someone who has been baking for years

As a homemaker, and someone who feels called to make most of our meals healthy and from scratch at home, I think baking bread is absolutely a staple to include in my week. In fact, if you’re just beginning your homemaker or homestead journey, baking your own bread is the perfect place to start. It’s easy, cheap, and might I add utterly delicious! 

Picture this…. warm bread baking in the oven as you prep the rest of your dinner. Maybe you’ve made a yummy, hearty soup or a delicious cast iron skillet meal for dinner. The bread comes out fresh from the oven, cools for a bit, and then you slice into a perfect loaf of slightly crusty bread with a perfectly soft middle. Finish that bread slice off with a spread of grass-fed butter and a drizzle of local raw honey (or at least that’s my favorite way to enjoy my slice). And oh-my-goodness, this is how it should be!

The best flours to use for this bread

Ok, just to clarify, there ARE flours and bread styles out there that are healthier for you and better for your gut than just regular white or wheat flour recipes. A fermented grain bread, like sourdough, or an ancient grain like Einkorn are always going to be a bit better for you because of their increased nutritional profile and better digestibility. But in our home, the only one that really loves the slightly sour taste of sourdough is me. So that doesn’t always work for us. And Einkorn is on my list to explore someday, but for right now, an organic wheat/white bread is wonderful for our family. It still has good nutritional value if you choose the correct ingredients! 

My favorite recipe has a half wheat flour, half white flour combo. When you make a recipe with only wheat flour, the end result is a bit denser and heavier than a white flour recipe. However, since this bread is something we eat on a regular basis, I do want it to have a good nutritional benefit to us. I opt for the half wheat, half white ratio so we get the fiber and nutrients from the wheat plus a good overall texture from the white. 

I buy organic white flour in bulk from Costco and store it in my pantry in large 5-gallon buckets. Organic wheat is a little more expensive (especially recently), but I have had some luck finding it in bulk online or at a local Mennonite bulk food store. It’s important to me to use organic grains, as wheat is a crop that is very heavily sprayed. 

Tips for making this recipe

• Make sure your water is not too warm when you add the yeast. A good temperature to aim for is around 100-105 degrees. If the water is too warm it can kill the yeast. 
• Do not add all the flour in at once. I like to start with 2 cups, allowing that all to come together into the beginnings of a dough. Then I slowly add another cup. And then more flour – usually up to 1/2 cup – about a tablespoon at a time, just until the mixture pulls away from the bowl as it kneads into a nice dough. Another trick I’ve learned to tell if it is ready is that the dough will be slightly tacky, but will spring back when you pinch it rather than stick together in your fingers. 
• Using a Kitchenaid mixer has significantly simplified the recipe for me and made it easy to throw together while I am doing other things in the kitchen. But if you don’t have it, you absolutely can mix and knead this by hand. 
• I always use glass measuring cups for liquids as they will give a more accurate measurement.
• If you need to speed up the process a bit, take your dough that is ready to rise and put it into an oven that has been preheated to 170 degrees. Then turn the oven off. Be sure to keep an eye on your dough, as it will proof faster. 

Tools you may need

• Kitchenaid mixer 
• Scraper 
• Loaf pan 
• Measuring cups and spoons 
• Glass measuring bowl 
• Towel 

Bread Ingredients

• Water 
• Yeast
• Organic White Flour
• Organic Wheat Flour
• Olive oil 
• Honey 
• Salt  

How to make Homemade Wheat Bread

Start by setting up mixer, and attaching dough hook. If you are doing by hand, disregard this step. 

Next, measure 1 1/4 cup very warm water into your bowl.

Add 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast and let sit 5 minutes or until frothy. 

Begin to mix your mixture and add in 1/4 cup honey, 1 teaspoon salt, and 3 tablespoons olive oil. 

Next, add 1 measured cup wheat flour, and 1 measured cup white flour. Allow this mixture to come together for about 2-3 minutes and a dough begins to form. It will be very sticky. 

Now slow down a bit and add 1 cup wheat flour. Pause your mixing and make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure it’s thoroughly combining. 

Next begin to add around 1/2 cup white flour to the mixture, going about 1 tablespoon at a time. This is the final step to the ingredients. Add flour until the dough naturally pulls away from the sides of the bowl as it mixes, and the dough lightly springs back when pinched. Be careful not to over-flour. Allow the mixer to knead the dough for ten minutes, or knead by hand. 

When the dough has properly developed gluten, and you can stretch it easily without it ripping, it is ready to rise. Put in an oiled bowl and let rise 30-45 minutes, until doubled.

Grease and ready your loaf pan while you wait. 

When the dough is finished with the first proof, punch down the dough and push it out into a long, flat shape on a floured surface. 

Next, carefully roll while tucking in the outside edges until you have a neat dough shape. (As pictured).

Place into the bread pan and allow for a second proof, about 40-45 min or until the dough has risen about an inch or so above the pan. 

Place pan in an oven preheated to 350 degrees. 

Bake for around 30 minutes, checking for doneness around 26-28 minutes. Bread will develop a dark brown crust, but watch that it doesn’t get too dark. 

Allow to cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes, and then carefully remove to a cooling wrack until cool enough to cut.

 

Enjoy it warm from the oven or allow to cool completely and then store in an airtight container.