BEST WHOLE WHEAT BREAD RECIPE
My Mom put on her apple apron, pulled out the flour containers, and kneaded homemade bread like nobody’s business. There was nothing like the smell of homemade bread straight out of the oven. I would run home from school much faster on those days when my Mom was baking homemade bread. I slathered the homemade bread with sweet cream butter and honey or berry jam. To this day it is still one of the most comforting foods that always reminds me of home.
I haven’t carried on my Mom’s tradition of weekly homemade bread because I have always said that it is way too time consuming. I still love to make it and feel a lot of satisfaction when it comes out of the oven but needed to find an easier way. Let me introduce to you the power of one hour bread!
Our good friend, Shannon Lundin, has finally shared her top secret bread recipe! She just started a brand new blog called BeeWhole where she shares her journey with healthy eating and healing. She deals with fibromyalgia and shares her story HERE. After not being able to eat gluten, she found that she could eat homemade whole wheat bread made from scratch with zero issues. It is such an amazing discovery and she is sharing her whole wheat bread recipe with all of us. I called her and asked if I could share this with my readers and she was happy to share.
After trying this bread in Texas, I couldn’t wait to follow her recipe and try it at home. I halved her best homemade one hour whole wheat bread recipe. I was in shock that it only took ONE HOUR to make two loaves of homemade bread. Amazing! It is incredible that you can make homemade bread start to finish in one hour.
This Best Homemade One Hour Whole Wheat Bread is made with such simple ingredients — whole wheat flour, warm water, yeast, honey, oil and salt. This bread is filled with all natural ingredients and no sugar! It is healthy, hearty, and delicious.
TIPS on MAKING the BEST HOMEMADE ONE HOUR WHOLE WHEAT BREAD:
- Let your YEAST PROOF. The key is to use very warm water (about 110 degrees). Adding honey to the yeast helps it proof even faster. Let the yeast proof for at least 5 minutes. Remember to always use fresh yeast. You will know the yeast is working when it starts to form a creamy foam on the surface.
- Use WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR or half white bread flour and half whole wheat flour. If you have a wheat grinder, you can grind your own wheat. If not, look for organic whole wheat flour. You can always use half white flour and half whole wheat flour if you like a lighter bread.
- Use a STAND MIXER. This bread recipe is easiest with a stand mixer such as a Bosch. I love my Bosch mixer because it makes this bread so much easier! This is a huge time saver as you knead the bread for 10-12 minutes in the mixer. It saves you from doing it yourself! If you don’t own a stand mixer, you can knead the bread dough by hand. See below for a great deal on a Bosch mixer.
- Let RISE in WARM OVEN. This expedites the rising process and cuts the time in half. Set the oven to about 200 degrees and let the bread rise for approximately 20 minutes or until double in size. Here are my favorite loaf pans.
- BAKE until GOLDEN BROWN. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and bake until golden on the outside. Remove from oven and spread butter over top of loaves to give moisture and shine.
Once you remove the hot homemade whole wheat bread from the oven, remove from pans and spread with butter and jam.
- 3 Cups Warm Water approximately 110 degrees
- 1 Tablespoon Active Dry Yeast
- 2/3 cup Honey
- 1/3 cup Oil plus a little extra for hands
- 7 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour may use half whole wheat/half white flour
- 1 Tablespoon Salt
- Butter to spread on top of bread
- Heat oven to warm about 200 degrees.
- Place warm water in large mixing bowl. Add yeast and stir. Stir in honey and let proof (start to form a creamy foam) for 5 minutes.
- Add oil, flour, and salt. Begin by adding 7 cups of flour. Start to mix using the dough hook. Add remaining 1/2 cup of flour until dough pulls away from sides of mixing bowl. Using Bosch or Kitchenaid, knead for 10 minutes at medium-high speed. If you don't own a stand mixer, you can knead by hand.
- Place a little oil on hands and shape into two bread loaves. Spray loaf pans with non-stick cooking spray. Put pans in a warm oven to let rise until double -- about 20 minutes.
- Once bread has raised, turn oven to 350 degrees. Leave bread in oven and set timer for 25 minutes.
- Check bread to see if it is golden brown. Once bread is done, remove from oven and spread butter all over warm loaves. Let cool for several minutes before removing from pan.
- Spread butter and jam or honey on warm bread.
- May freeze bread or eat within 2 days.
I can’t wait to see your pictures of your Best Homemade One Hour Whole Wheat Bread. Tag me using #modernhoney or @modern_honey on instagram. I would love to see your creations!
This is a delicious bread recipe. I have never let the bread only once, so i was skeptical to to try it. The bread rose and cooked up nicely. I added 1/2 cup of wheat bran and bran and 1/4 cup of whead germ and only used 6 cups of whole wheat flour. I used 1/3 cup of melted and cooled unsalted butter instead of oil. I think I’ll use 2 cups of buttermilk and 1 cup water instead of 3 cups of water and another 2 tbsp. of honey next time to give the bread even more flavor.
I use a bread machine to mix my dough. Can this recipe be cut in half as my machine will not mix that much dough. If so could you give me the measurements I should use. Thank you!
Can this recipe be cut in half, I do not have enough pans to make a full recipe.
I struggled to find a good bread recipe, and had enough disappointments that I almost gave up making bread altogether….but decided to try this recipe. I loved the idea of making bread in an hour, instead of the usual three. I was so happy the first time I made it. It not only made two beautiful loaves, but the texture was perfect and it was delicious. I have made this bread dozens of times and it always turns out the same…..two perfect loaves in an hour. It can’t get better than that! I have since played around with it some….added some wheat germ or oatmeal or half white flour….everything I have tried has worked. Thank you so much for this recipe.
The first time I made this it didn’t rise and did not bake well. Tried again & it looks much better but there is like an air pocket or something where it hollowed out on one side. What would have caused this? This is my first time baking bread so don’t know all the secrets. Thank you!
Dear J., I am also a novice bread baker and have turned out lots of weirdly shaped loaves too! However, I found this recipe turned out the best and since I do not have a stand mixer (poor me!) I kneaded it for 150 turns instead of the often mentioned 50. That appeared to do the trick, so if you have a stand mixer then I don’t know the answer, but if you are a hand kneader then I would suggest watching a YouTube video on bread kneading to learn some simple techniques. Good luck and don’t give up!
I’ve been making my own bread for a while now, and today I decided that I was tired of spending half of my day mixing, kneading, rising, kneading, rising… I am so glad I found this recipe. The bread turned out so much better than bread I spent 3x the amount of time making. My family is quite pleased! Thank you!
This recipe is so simple and so good!!! It came out absolutely perfect! First time making wheat bread and I personally am very busy with other things so making it in an hour was super appealing to me 🙂 I’ve already shared the recipe with others!
Made this recipe today- no alterations from original as published. Am very happy with the results and glad to find a recipe that bakes up more quickly than a 3 hr time span! Plan on giving a loaf with a jar of our home produced honey to a friend today for her 70th birthday. Have pics not too adept with Instagram so not sure I can post them but will try. Happy Baker!
What a great recipe! The finished bread was delicious. I ended up adding considerably more flour, but then I live on the Oregon coast, plus it has been raining for days; our humidity is at 80%, so that impacts any baking.
I’m anxious to try your other recipes. Good job!
Having given up processed sugars, it was hard to find bread that i could eat til i came across your site. This is my new favorite recipe. I will say that i totally messed up my second batch and left the oil out, not wanting to just throw it away i tried it and have now removed the oil from the recipe with no noticeable impact. I enjoyed this recipe so much that i make 4 loaves a week now, 2 original as posted for sandwiches and such and 2 just for breakfast with caraway seeds and currants. Can’t wait to try some more of your recipes, Thanks!
Delicious!! I’m happy to find a wonderful wholesome wheat bread that is actually moist and tastes good! Will be making it again and again.
I just made this because unbeknownst to moi, the whole wheat bread we’ve been buying from ShopRite has high fructose corn syrup. These are lovely and quick. Two caveats: the dough was almost there by 6 minutes in the mixer – then it overheated the motor. Secondly, I had to bake mine quite a lot longer. The loaves are still warm!
Thank you very much!
Thank you for sharing this excellent foolproof recipe. I do not have a bread machine, but I closely followed your recipe. I discreetly modified it by adding minced cranberries and raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg and flax seed. I also made it more nutritious by adding crumbled almonds, walnuts, and sunflower seeds. It was my first attempt and it was amazingly successful and delicious. I could not imagine bread without milk, butter, shortening, and sugar. Thank you for sharing. I do not eat much bread but I will be using your recipe again from time to time.
Best bread I have ever eaten ! Extremely easy to make as well ! Thank you so much for the recipe !!
My son (10 yrs) and I made our very FIRST bread ever using this recipe and it turned out perfectly and it was MOUTHWATERING!!!! Thank you so much for simplifying the process for non-bakers like us.
P.S. we love to try new things and will follow your recipes more often.
I have had pretty dismal luck making bread. Most often they end up looking like something that just landed from a space ship, but this recipe turned out so great! My loaves did look a little caved in on the sides (in keeping with my tradition!) but they tasted great and since I knead by hand I think it is most likely they way I did the final shaping or perhaps I need to work on my kneading technique. I am going to try this recipe today and will be adding flax meal and butter instead of oil. I wonder also, if anyone has tried adding an egg to this recipe? Also has anyone had any luck altering this recipe to just make one loaf?
Hi Suzanne,
Love the idea of adding seeds and nuts. Do you remember what quantities you used? Did you decrease other ingredients to make room for the add ins?
Thank you,
Gail
This is quite an interesting recipe.. Thank you for sharing!. i have a couple of questions, please: First, when you say preheat oven to 200F means I will preheat the oven and leave it set to 200f and put the dough to proof inside the 200F heated oven without turning it off? And after the proofing time increase the temperature to 350F?. I have read that yeast dies at 130F,.. unless what I read is referring to internal temperature? I am confused now…
Second question would be: Should I cover the bread while it proofs in the 200f heated oven? Usually recipes call for covering dough with a damp towel, does it apply to your recipe as well? if no, can you please explain to me why or what is the effect the uncovered bread will have? A drier/harder crust, maybe? Please share a little bit of your wisdom here with me. :).
I loved the end result, but the water to flour ratio was off the scale. I ended up using almost double the amount of flour – which is fine, as now I have a ton of bread 🙂 In the end, instead of butter, I used coconut oil to smother the tops of the loaves with, very aromatic.
I found the baking time to be way off, especially using an electric oven that takes a long time to come up to temperature. Next time I will allow bread to rise outside the oven so that I can preheat it.
Thanks this is the simplest good bread recipe. I can take the dough from the mixer straight into the oven. set the start and stop timers and presto. No fuss. I don’t think it is possible to make good bread any easier.: )
Love this easy recipe! I made this for my 11-month old’s French toast in the mornings, so didn’t want to use honey. I substituted turbinado sugar (replaced using 5/6 c sugar and 1/6 c water). No mixer, so I kneaded by hand, 150 turns as someone above posted. I only have one bread pan, so after oiling the loaves, I stuck one in a ziploc bag and froze it. Both loaves turned out fine. For the frozen loaf, I thawed it in the fridge the night before, then just resumed recipe, putting it in the loaf pan, rising at 200 degrees, etc. For both loaves, the final bake at 350 degrees took more like 35 mins instead of 25.
I was amazed at making such a soft, springy and an excellent rising whole wheat bread. It was however too sweet and salty for me when I actually used less salt to begin with. I know salt does improve the protein structure, but to get a great tasting loaf I will try it without any salt and less honey next time and see if it even comes close.