Fresh homemade bread is the best. There is truly nothing like it. Learn how to make your own homemade bread that the whole family will love.
This is our family’s basic bread. It is the staple bread in our home and I make it all the time. It is also used as a building block for many other recipes, like cinnamon rolls or pepperoni rolls.
To begin, I start by turning on the light in the oven. This creates a slightly warm environment, ideal for the dough to rise.
If your oven has an led light in it, it will not warm up. Instead, you could turn your oven on for just a few minutes to warm it up, but not make it hot.
Yeast needs warmth to properly grow and develop.
You can watch me take you through the process of making this bread and answer your questions in the video below:
Preparing the Bread Dough
The recipe will take about 6 1/2 cups of flour, so I will generally grind up enough wheat to get close to that, but not more, because I don’t want to waste any.
I combine all of the ingredients in my mixer. Make sure the water is warm, not hot. If you can, always use non-chlorinated water. That is the best option for healthy yeast.
The dough is combined with the dough hook attachment on low speed for 14 minutes. Of course, you can also knead your dough by hand if you like.
Once the dough is ready, cover and let it sit in a warm location for about an hour, or until it has doubled in size. The amount of time needed will depend upon how warm or cool the location is.
Shaping the Bread Loaves
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and cut it into 4 equal portions.
Take one portion and pat it out into a rectangular shape, then roll it up.
Place the rolled dough into a prepared loaf pan, tucking in the ends of the dough. The loaf pan should be greased and floured or coated with my Baking Spray Replacement.
Place the loaves in the warm location and cover the pans with a tea towel. Again, allow the bread dough to rise until it has doubled in size.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Brush the loaves with a little milk and bake for 18 minutes.
When the homemade bread is finished baking, remove the loaves to a cooling rack and allow the bread to cool.
Can I use Store Bought Wheat Flour?
If you are using store-bought wheat flour, do NOT use all wheat flour in this. At most, only use half wheat and half white bread flour. Store bought wheat is very, very dry and will not create a very pleasant bread.
Can I Make this with White Flour?
Yes! You can absolutely make this recipe using traditional bread flour.
As you make the dough, you may need to adjust the flour quantity to get that nice, soft dough. Always start with a little less than required and add a little at a time as you need it.
A message from a few of my readers, about this Homemade Bread:
Just wanted to say thanks for posting the recipe and the pictures. I just got my grain mill a while ago and found one good whole wheat recipe, then promptly lost it.
The next recipe I tried said that if I was using whole wheat for all the flour, it would take a whole bunch more liquid than it would with bread flour.
After I had put in all the whole wheat and liquid, I ended up using white bread flour to absorb the extra liquid–the loaves came out looking like gargantuan pop overs, lol.
When I read here that fresh ground whole wheat is not as dry as store bought, a lightbulb went on for me. Thanks so much for that tip!
I have a Kitchen Aid w/dough hook but was unsure of how long to let it run for kneading so always ended up hand kneading. I’m going to try it with the Kitchen Aid, and who knows, maybe I’ll even get around to baking bread more often!
We love this bread recipe. It does typically need more flour for me, but it is easy and always turns out perfectly. I’ve done it with store bought and freshly milled flour, both work great, and I sometimes cut the recipe in half two only make a couple loaves at a time, although it freezes well too. Thank you Constance!
Carrie
Need Help with Your Bread?
If you ever have issues with making yeast breads, check out my article on how to figure out what went wrong – What’s Wrong with my Bread!? | A Yeast Bread Troubleshooting Guide.
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