Healthy-ish Honey Wheat Bread

Full disclosure: this is the before oven pic. I literally could not get a photo of the after before my family descended on it 😂

Here’s a not so well kept secret: I love me some bread.

Like, really love it.

So much so in fact, that I started making it homemade bread every single week! I know. But there’s far less effort involved than you might think. It also helps that a majority of the work is done by my KitchenAid. I can’t say I would be doing this if I had to knead by hand! Sorry foremothers, that’s one vintage skill I’m going to skip over. And even though my husband and myself would eat white sandwich bread with butter until it stopped our hearts, we decided we needed to make some slight adjustments. Enter whole wheat bread.

Now, I’m not going to say that I’m a genius, (I want you to say it, obvs.) but I think I make some pretty good bread. So I was admittedly a little worried about how this ‘whole wheat’ situation was going to turn out. But it’s actually amazing! Am I biased? Oh absolutely. But I am not a world class baker by any means— I’m a world class eater of delicious foods. So when I say it’s good, you bettabuhlieve it’s good. So if you’re looking for a fairly simple healthy(ish) bread recipe that a self-proclaimed dummy can make then you’re on the right blog post, friend!

So let’s get to it!

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm milk

• 1 tbsp honey

• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

• 3 tbsp softened butter

• 1 egg

• 1 tsp salt

• 2 cups bread flour (we use Lindley Mills- they’re NC local!)

• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour

• 1/3 cup oat flour

• 2 tbsp Young Living Einkhorn Flour

For topping:

• 1 egg, beaten

• old-fashioned rolled oats

Instructions

1. Whisk together warm milk, yeast, and honey in a small bowl & let bloom for 5-10 minutes

2. Mix in the butter, egg, and salt & stir until combined

3. Stir in flour 1 cup at a time until dough begins to form

4. Knead by hand or in the stand mixer (use bread hook attachment) for 5-7 minutes or until the dough forms a smooth ball. (Try not to add more flour or else your bread will become chewy. Often when dough is “too sticky”, it really just needs to be kneaded a few minutes more.)

5. Place dough in a greased bowl & cover with a clean tea towel or linen napkin. Rise in a warm spot until doubled. (roughly an hour in my kitchen.)

6. Punch the dough down and knead for one minute on a lightly floured surface. Form a loaf, place in a buttered loaf pan, and let rise for an additional hour or until the loaf rises 1” above the edge of the pan.

7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat the egg and brush on the top of the loaf. (You won’t need it all— you can save the remainder for breakfast the next morning or a diy hair protein treatment!) Then sprinkle on oats to your liking.

8. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until top is lightly browned and inside reaches 190 degrees. If it starts to brown too quickly, you can loosely cover the loaf with a piece of tin foil. (I just reuse the same piece to cover my bread over and over again to limit waste!)

9. Let it cool completely (if you have the willpower) & slice. If you intend to use this for sandwich bread (we do!) you’ll need to let it cool for around 2 hours before slicing in order to get that nice sandwich bread texture. (Fun fact: the bread actually keeps “cooking” on the counter once it’s out of the oven!) I promise that if you let it fully cool for 2 hours or even overnight (wrapped loosely in a clean tea towel), your loaf will have that nice chewy-yet-airy sandwich bread texture you crave!

10. Once cooled completely, store in an airtight container in your breadbox for 3 days or in the freezer for 3 months. Pro tip: Wrap up any bread you aren't going to eat within the next 2 days and freeze it in 2 slice portions. That way when you’re rushed making lunch in the morning, you don’t have to mess with an entire loaf of frozen bread! You can just toss them in the toaster on defrost real quick and make your sammie or slap some butter and jam on there.