Nothing beats the smell of homemade bread baking in the oven. Am I right?
I rarely make homemade bread, but since trying to eat healthier and running across a recipe for whole wheat bread in the crockpot (which I thought sounded intriguing), I decided to give it a try. The bread tasted good, but was super dense. I know homemade bread will never be as light and fluffy as store-bought, but I also don’t want to eat a brick.
So I decided to try again and this time, I would make it in a loaf pan so we could use it for sandwiches. I ended up following the recipe on the back of my yeast packet, but threw in some ideas from the original recipe I tried, too. That’s how I concocted the recipe below and guess what? It turned out great!
The bread was a little dense, but not even close to the first loaf I made. The taste is great (the honey helps) and I love that it’s healthy and clean eating approved (no preservatives or artificial flavors). It only takes about 15 minutes to prep and the rest is just resting time and baking time.
The ingredients are cheap too; making this even more affordable than the cheapest of whole wheat breads (and if you’ve ever tried buying organic or all natural whole wheat bread, you know it can cost up to $5 a loaf!). The entire bag of whole wheat flour cost me $5, and I will easily get 5+ loaves out of it.
If you try this recipe and still find it to be too dense for your liking, try some of the tips in this article. I found it to be so informative! I may even try cutting back on the flour used in this recipe next time and see how it turns out.
And if you like this recipe, I bet you’ll also like my whole wheat banana bread recipe, too!
Whole wheat bread recipe (clean eating approved)
Author: The Mombot
Yield: 1 loaf
Prep time: 15 minutes
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Ingredients:
| 4 | c | whole wheat flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill 100% stone ground) |
| 2 | pk | Fleischmann’s RapidRise Yeast |
| 2 | t | salt |
| 1 3⁄4 | c | milk (I used 1%) |
| 1⁄4 | c | raw honey |
| 3 | T | butter |
| 1⁄2 | c | rolled oats |
| coconut oil (enough to grease your pan) |
Instructions:
- Combine whole wheat flour, undissolved yeast and salt in a large bowl.
- Heat milk, honey and butter until very warm and butter melts. Add to flour mixture. Stir by hand or use electric mixture to combine (I used a hand mixer on medium/high speed. It mixed the dough quickly, but starts running out of power once the dough starts to mix and thicken, which is when I switched to mixing by hand).
- Add oats and mix.
- Knead for 2 minutes.
- Grease 9×5 inch loaf pan with coconut oil. Place dough in loaf pan. Cover with towel and let sit for 1 hour, until dough doubles in size.
- Preheat oven to 375. Bake 45 minutes or until done and top starts to brown.
- Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.
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