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.
Did you Make this Recipe? I’d love for you to give me a 5 star rating in the recipe card below. If you share it on Instagram, please tag me!
Homemade Honey Wheat Bread
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 2 c + 2 Tb warm water
- 1 Tb sea salt
- 3 Tb olive oil, or vegetable
- 4 1/2 teaspoon yeast
- 6 1/2 c flour
- 1/2 c honey
Instructions
- To begin, grease & flour 4 4×9" loaf pans (or coat with my baking spray replacement.)
- Combine all ingredients except 1/2 cup of the flour in the mixing bowl and run the mixer with the dough hook attachment, on low, for 14 minutes.
- Add small amounts of the reserved flour if the dough is sticky.
- Cover the bowl and let the dough rise, covered, in a warm place for 45 minutes, or until it is doubled in size.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface.
- Divide the dough into 4 equal portions and pat out a portion into a rectangle. Roll the dough up and place in a prepared loaf pan, seam-side down, and tucking the ends under.
- Repeat this with all of the portions. Cover the loaves with a tea towel and let them rise in a warm place for about an hour, or until the loaves have doubled in size.
- Heat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Brush the tops of the loaves with a little milk.
- Bake for 18 minutes.
- Remove the loaves from the pans and let them cool on baking racks.
- Enjoy!
Video
Notes
- 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.
- Turn your oven light on to create a gently warm environment in your oven for the dough to rise.
- This recipe can easily be cut in half to make only 2 loaves.
- This bread freezes well.
Nutrition
If nutritional values are provided for this recipe, they are an estimate and will vary depending on the brands of ingredients you use. The values do not include optional ingredients or when ingredients are added to taste or for serving. If nutritional values are very important to you, I suggest using your favorite nutritional calculating tool with the brands you use.
Hello, love your channel. I went through your recipes to see if you had one for sourdough bread and didn’t find one.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. Blessings, Maryanne
This turned out so amazing!! I used my kitchen aid grain mill and then kitchen aid mixer- had to cut the recipe in half so it would fit, but WOW I’ve never made such good bread! Thank you so much for sharing this!!
Just found your channel and will be making this recipe tomorrow! Did you happen to use hard white wheat berries or hard red? I don’t remember you saying in your YouTube video. Thanks!
My husband and I have just started grinding our wheat. We’ve used a lot of Sue Becker’s resources and have loved the learning process! A couple questions from a novice….
My husband is allergic to eggs, any ideas on substitutes or recipes without egg?
Do you ever sift your flour after milling?
Thanks for sharing your passion!
Just leave out the egg might need a tablespoon of water to replace the moisture but bread doesn’t have to have egg in it
Is it possible to form the loaves and then freeze all but one to be baked later?
I have never personally frozen unbaked loaves, but I know that people often do :)
Thanks Constance for the wonderful recipe. I had just gotten my bosch grain mill attachment and was so excited to see you using yours. I was not able to get the hard white berries so I used red berries and am enjoying my loaves. You are an inspiration and I am hoping you will do some different grains like kamut or a rye bread recipe next. I am a bread maker and do my own sourdough bread from scratch with no commercial yeast and love to learn new recipes.
I have been making all of my family’s bread for years, but I have just started grinding my own wheat, etc. In my research, I came across your channel on YT. I made this bread today. I took your advice and did half bread flour and half hard white berries (ground in my new Mockmill). The bread turned out fantastic. I will gradually wean myself off or the bread flour, but will, as per your advice, be using bread flour to supplement as it worked out perfectly.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.
I’m glad to hear of your success!
How much starter would you add to this recipe?
I want try this bread recipe. I need to find some wheat seed. preferably organic.
Also the recipe says to bake for 18 minutes.
This is the most fool-proof recipe for soft wheat bread from freshly milled wheat berries. I was struggling to make bread that was soft and not dense or crumbly. I have made bagels, hamburger buns, and rolls using your recipe and they all were delicious and the perfect texture. Thank you so much for sharing!
This bread tastes amazing! Thanks for sharing!
So glad you liked it! It is our favorite :)
Gotta say thanks (again) for posting this recipe (again). Its hard to find a recipe for fresh ground whole wheat bread with the right liquid measurements. I usually make two loaves at a time and just hand knead the dough. I had a bad experience using a bread machine–it over kneaded so the bread was "tough". As a result, I've been sort of scared to try letting my mixer do the work for me, but this week I decided I want to try to make several loaves at once, the way you show in this recipe, so I'm going to give the mixer kneading a go. :)
Your bread looks amazing and so yummy. I've only baked my own rolls before, but now I'm eyeing up this bread…
I really really enjoyed this recipe….I need a sandwich loaf and this fits the bill taste wise as well as "fluffy" as my husband calls it… only problem…..It's not "tall" enough to make a sandwich….suggestions…make 3 loaves instead of 4? different loaf pans? I used a glass similar to the one in the pic then 3 metal ones all different and they are all about the same size loaves :) hanks for your help and the wonderful recipe :D
Smaller pans make taller loaves
I've baked my own bread only once. It went OK, but the process still kind of intimidates me. Though the wish for that smell of fresh baking bread may trump my nervousness of making it! Thanks for the recipe and the step by step!
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Beautiful loaves Constance! Isn't the smell of bread baking in the oven the greatest?
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Gorgeous loaves! I will be trying the milk trick the next time I make bread.
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I will be making this tomorrow..
thank you for sharing all your wonderful recipes.
I so stole your recipe years ago. Love it!