The smell of homemade bread is intoxicating for me! A fresh slice from the oven with a little butter on the top is like a taste of heaven! Especially when this bread comes from your very own oven and is made from quality ingredients, no additives, and soaked for the highest nutritional benefit! Who can ask for better? The question is not whether it will save you money to make your own bread (which I am sure it will all the same), but rather you will know exactly what is being put into your bread! It is all about quality and freshness! Making homemade bread was one of my jobs growing up where it was rather of a burden than a joy to complete, but now that I am married and raising a family, I have come to realize the real value of developing this art!
Read a few benefits here.
Helpful Hints on Successful Bread Making
- When possible, use fresh home-milled flour. This will have the highest nutritional content, and the best baking characteristics for higher rising loaves. If this is not possible, store good quality flour in your freezer, but bring it to room temperature before using for the best results.
- Use high quality yeast such as SAF Instant Dry Yeast. This is available in quantity at Costco for a good price. Store in the freezer. It will last 2 years or more. If your yeast does not proof, then it is too old!
- Remember to proof your yeast! Add your yeast to warm water (between 100-115 degrees) with 1 tsp of honey. This will prepare it for action!
- Remember that less flour is best! You should only add just enough flour until the beaters in your mixing bowl are scraping the sides of the bowl clean. If you add too much flour, your bread will be crumbly. Dough should still be slightly sticky before kneading.
- Develop the gluten thoroughly. When dough is properly kneaded it will be smooth and elastic. A quick test for sufficient kneading is to take a golfball-sized portion of dough; stretch it between the thumb and index finger of both hands to determine if the gluten is fully developed. The dough should stretch out thin and not tear readily.
- Make sure to give your dough two risings! The additional rising will develop flavor, gluten framework and make more fluffy loaves. It is optional, if you are in a hurry.
- Only let rise till doubled before baking! This is the mistake I make too often. 30 minutes is a good length of time. If they rise too long the structure of the loaf will become weak and it will sink or fall completely during baking.
Homemade Bread – Lindsay’s Way
Makes 4 loaves
I make this recipe once a month, and freeze them, and we are set!
4 1/2 cups water
2 1/2 Tablespoons active dry yeast (or 2 packages)
1 tsp honey (for activating yeast)
1 ½ Tbls. Salt
¾ cup coconut oil, butter or olive oil (melted)
1 cup honey
11-12 cups whole wheat flour or combination (I will occasionally throw in some kamut, barley, etc., but I mainly use hard white winter grain and/or hard red winter grain) – You can replace 1-2 cups with unbleached white flour for an even lighter texture, if desired.
2 1/2 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup flax seeds, optional
1/3 cup raw millet, optional
1/4 cup sunflower seeds, optional
2-4 Tbsp dough enhancer (4 Tbsp works best for me!) – makes for some wonderfully light loaves of bread! I highly recommend this dough enhancer, as it works very well, but you can also replace with any combination of the following: 3 tablespoons vital wheat gluten, 1/2 teaspoon soy lecithin, a pinch of citric acid (use sparingly!), and a sprinkling of ginger
Combine yeast, 1 tsp of honey, and 1/2 cup of the total water required. Let sit for 5 minutes or so, until fully proofed. Combine the yeast mixture, remaining 4 cups of water, and all the rest of the ingredients in your mixer. Only add as much flour until it cleans the sides of the bowl. Knead the dough for 10 minutes until the gluten is fully developed. Remove to a greased bowl and cover with a towel. Let sit until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours. Punch down and divide into 4 loaves. Roll out with a rolling pin into a rectangle and roll up into a loaf (this makes the perfectly shaped loaves). Place in greased bread bans and rise again until doubled, about 30-45 minutes minutes (the best place is the oven! Just turn it on low 150-170 degrees till heated and then turn it off, prior to putting the loaves in). Turn the oven on to 350 degrees and bake for 30-45 minutes. Bread is done when it is fully browned on all sides! Remove from oven, rest in pans for 10 minutes before removing from pans.
Benefits of Soaking Your Grains
If you want to add the benefits of soaking the grains to this recipe, my soaking method is as follows:
Combine the following ingredients, cover and soak for 12-24 hours:
1 cup kefir, cultured buttermilk, or whey (for dairy intolerant you can substitute with 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar or lemon juice and 3/4 cup water)
3 cups of water
11 cups of ground flour (you can replace 1 or 2 cups with unbleached white flour for a lighter end result)
2 cups oats
1 cup honey
3/4 cup coconut oil, butter or olive oil, melted
1/4 cup raw millet, optional
1/4 cup flax seed, optional
After soaking, activate the yeast by combining:
1/2 cup water
1 tsp honey
2 1/2 Tbsp active dry yeast
After activating the yeast, combine it with the soaked flour and add the remaining ingredients:
1 1/2 Tbsp sea salt
2-4 Tbsp dough enhancer
1 cup unbleached white flour, if necessary (usually not necessary)
Sunflower seeds, if desired
Kneed for approximately 8-10 minutes. Continue with instructions as listed above.
Further Resources
A few excellent articles and tips on making your own homemade bread! Urban Homemaker has an abundance of resources on this topic!
Bread Baking Problems & Solutions
Tips for the Best Bread
Related Posts
- Bosch Mixer Review
- Winter Monthly Menu Plan
- Sucessful Homemade Bread – the soaked way!
- Kitchen Tip: Save those peelings!
This is my first time making soaked wheat bread. It seems from all the comments that you knead your bread in a mixer, about how long do I need to knead the bread if I am doing it by hand? I don’t think that I kneaded it enough this time. thanx
I am not sure the exact amount of time for needing by hand. The goal is to get the gluten fully developed. You can test it by pulling a small chunk from the loaf and stretch it. If it tears quickly you will want to kneed it further. If it stretches a few inches without tearing, then it is developed. Does that make sense? Your kneading time will probably be twice as long then if you used a mixer.
I’ve read that you knead it until the dough “resists” kneading. Most of the time it is probably 10-15 minutes. I would imagine with a mixer it is shorter. I usually stop the kneading in my mixer when the dough gets stuck on the dough hook. =)
Lindsay, I have been following your site for a few months. Love, love, love it!
A question about grinding wheat…
Is there some easy way to know how much to grind to get more of an exact amount needed for a recipe? I keep over grinding & not being able to use it all before the 24 hours.
Thanks & congrats on the beautiful baby boy!
I believe 1 cup of grain will make about 1 1/2 cups of flour. If you can’t use it all at once, go ahead and put it in the freezer. This will preserve the nutrients! I do it all the time!
i am new to your blog and have been poking around. i grind my own wheat and bake my own bread, but i have never heard about soaking grains until now. i read your reasoning for that and it makes sense. i am also wondering why you use a dough enhancer and if it is necessary? also, why do you add unbleached white flour?
Both dough enhancer and white flour help to provide a lighter and moist final product. They are not necessary, but I find them very beneficial for getting the texture our family enjoys. Whole wheat just naturally tends to be very dense on its own. I rarely add white flour, but always use the dough enhancer.
thanks lindsay! is lecithin essentially the same thing as dough enhancer and do you know if it prohibits health in anyway?
p.s. i’m so glad i found your site. i have lived in the atlanta area since i got married, but i am from west linn and my parents live in the felida area of vancouver now. your site is a little taste of home and the people i know there:)
Dough enhancer is a combination of lecithin, wheat gluten, citric acid and a few other ingredients. My research has shown it to be perfectly fine for your health as these ingredients are 100% natural. You really are not using very much of it anyway. Blessings!
Hello Lindsay,
I love your web-site. I have recently started to buy grain in bulk to mill my own flour. Thank you for clearing up the confusing information I have been getting from well meant advisors. I had been given the impression that I was to soak the whole grain and dry it before milling it into flour. Now I understand the grain is to milled into flour then soak before using it in recipes. One topic I have not found much information on is how to bake bread with starters instead of active dry yeast. Do you have any experiences with this? Thanks, Marianne
There are actually two different methods for breaking down the phytates in grain. One way is called sprouting, and that includes what you described: soaking the whole grain, dehydrating, and then milling. The second method is soaking, which is what I do. Soaking the milled flour and using it in recipes. Both methods accomplish the same thing, but soaking is much easier in my opinion. I wrote a post comparing the two methods here. I personally have not explored into the world of sourdough starters as of yet. IT is a goal for this year. If you want to learn how to make a sourdough starter, check out Heavenly Homemakers tutorial. It is very thorough.
[...] of our upcoming meals to stick in the freezer, including Chicken Divan, pancakes, extra loaves of bread and a batch of hamburger buns (made from the same recipe), bleu cheese burgers and cooked ground [...]
[...] bin (6 qt) from Targer for $1, and it sits on the bottom shelf holding the peanut butter, jelly, bread, mayo, relish and other items I use to make sandwiches. It’s very convenient to just pull out [...]
I typically only make my bread on a need basis because I am concerned about oxidation and the loss of nutrients if I were to freeze it. What are your thoughts on this? Have you read anything that would caution/not freezing bread?
I have not personally heard anything about losing nutrients from freezing bread. I have purchased some bread in the past from a whole foods store that required it to be refrigerated or frozen because they were free from preservatives. Refrigeration keep them from going bad.
Hey Lindsay!
My mother in law and I are making the bread this weekend… I am curious, though – if we are not using freshly milled flour – do we need to decrease the amount of the flour we are using? Or is it still the same?
Sorry to ask that.. but i wasn’t sure!
Thanks!
The flour measurements will be the same with both store bought or freshly milled flour.
Hi! I’m so excited to try this (and I wanted to tonight!) but I only have “quick oats” in the house. Should I wait and buy rolled oats???
Thanks, Lindsay, for all your detail in explaining things!
Go ahead and use quick oats! I don’t think it will make any difference. Blessings!
Lindsay, I have a question about getting my bread to have a lighter texture. I made your recipe for the first time yesterday, and while the bread is tasty and all – it didn’t rise as high as I would have liked – it’s certainly not as high as your photograph. I didn’t have access to the dough enhancer, the lecithin or citric acid, so I just used gluten, which is what I use in my bread machine with other recipes. I expect that is the problem. Would you agree?
I also made the whole wheat tortillas – my concern is the amount of calories in the bread and tortillas adding to my weight control issues. I am used to commercially made items that are less dense and so I tend to eat less calories. Has this posed a problem for you? It doesn’t look like it – but I do wonder if it’s a problem for you or any other of your readers.
Yes, the dough enhancer makes a significant difference from my experience. I tried just gluten previously and it didn’t quite work sufficiently on its own. I believe homemade whole grain items would be a better choice than commercial products as they are more nutritionally dense. You may just desire not to consume as much as you would the commercial products if you are concerned about calories. It has not been a problem for us.
Hi. I just tried your bread recipe and used the soaked method and it turned out really well. I didn’t have dough enhancer either and used gluten and the loaves didn’t rise as much as I would have liked but the taste was fabulous! This is the first soaked bread recipe that my family and I have really liked. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Hi, I have been making my own bread for about two years, but I am just learning about grinding my own flour and soaking. I have heard about the nutrients disappearing from the flour so many hours after it is milled. My question is this: if you make several loaves and freeze them to eat weeks later, aren’t the nutrients gone by the time it is eaten? Also, wouldn’t the heat of the oven kill any nutrients in the freshly-ground flour. And doesn’t soaking for 24 hours waste those nutrients that are gone within 24 hours of grinding the grain into flour??? It just doesn’t make sense to me, but I want our “daily bread” to have as much nutritional value as God intended.
[...] like you would cream cheese; I like mixing in a little all-fruit spread and eating it on a slice of whole grain bread. You could also mix in some garlic and Italian seasoning for a bagel spread or veggie dip. Or check [...]
My first try at this recipe turned out pretty well! I have one problem and I’d love to know if anyone has suggestions. I make a half-recipe of this and I don’t have a mixer, and found that my flimsy $10 hand mixer can’t work the dough. I use the soaking recipe, and I’ve found that when my soaking is done, I have a terribly difficult time working in the warm water and yeast with a wooden spoon. I think this is why my bread didn’t rise as well as I would have liked.
Do you have any tips on working bread dough without a mixer to make it all nice and even?
I have some dough soaking right now that I’m about to finish. I ran out of honey so I substituted blackstrap molasses, I’ll let you know how that works out!
Hi Lindsay,
I just discovered a great tip I wanted to pass on to you to try with baked goods. I’ve just started experimenting with organic coconut flour. It’s extremely high in fiber (low carb) and it’s great for making quickie baked goods if I haven’t soaked flour. Anyway, your bread recipe, as well as my NT pastry recipe, call for adding white flour to prevent sticking. After all the aggravation I go to to soak my whole grains, I just hate using white flour. Yesterday and today it was very damp and rainy, and my pastry dough for empanadas and my bread dough was so sticky I could barely work with it. I added a little bit of coconut flour and it stiffened the dough right up. Because of its high fiber content, it absorbs liquid quickly, so just a small amount kneaded into both doughs worked wonders. I also threw a little down on my counter while I was rolling out the dough, and it worked great. I get mine from Tropical Traditions, same place I get my coconut oil. It’s expensive, but all the recipes use a small amount. It makes fluffy muffins and biscuits. Sometimes I just get a little tired of the heavy brown baked goods, and the coconut flour mixes it up a little.
Lisa
Excellent suggestion!
So, substituting blackstrap molasses for honey worked GREAT! However, I’m running into one problem. My second try at this bread turned out better than the first, but on the second day, the bread has a very bitter taste, I almost can’t eat it. I’m using very fresh ingredients so I have no idea what’s causing this, anyone know?
Hi Lindsay,
I have two questions about this recipe. I’ve been making it successfully for a few months now. The first couple times I made it, it came out like storebought bread…fluffy and high and light. Since then, it’s been alot more dense. It doesn’t rise as high, and the texture on the top of the bread looks like a sponge. It still tastes good, but it’s ugly and heavier. I’m not doing anything different that I know of. I’ve always used gluten+ascorbic acid to enhance the dough, but am thinking of just buying the enhancer that you recommend. I can’t understand why it’s not coming out though, after it came out beautifully at first. Any ideas?
Secondly, do you think there’s a way of using rapadura in place of the honey? Honey is very dear around here, and I hate spending a fortune on raw honey, then destroying all its enzymes by baking it! I was thinking of reducing the flour by a cup and adding a cup of rapadura, and adding a couple eggs to make up for the lost liquid honey. I like using eggs in my bread anyway for the EFA’s and complete protein. What do you think?
This blog is such an encouragement and blessing to me. Thanks for all your tips!
Can I freeze the unused loaves of bread until my family is ready for them? What do you suggest for storing (container, mode, etc.) Thanks so much for your site!
Definitely! I always make this recipe and freeze three of the loaves till ready to use. I just cut each loaf in half and store it in gallon size ziploc bags. This works great! You can also wrap them in freezer paper, if you desire.
[...] that it worked! At first, I just tried it with enough for one loaf of bread (a quarter of the original recipe by Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking); I also only made the dough in the bread machine because I [...]
How can I use your bread recipe in a bread machine? I’ve never made my own bread, not even in the machine. So I’m brand new at this and don’t understand some of the terms. (proofing?)
Thanks. I love your site.
Proofing just means letting the yeast activate a bit before adding it to the other ingredients. I think that sugar feeds the yeast, which is why a little honey is added at this step. Just combine the water, honey and yeast, let it sit for about 5 min, and you will see the yeast get big and bubbly. Then add it to the other ingredients. Proofing is pretty simple for such a fancy name! I’m new at bread making too, but my first batch turned out great! I do have a Kitchen Aid mixer, and the dough hook makes it quite easy. I’m sure you could do this in the bread machine though… it should have come with instructions for the order of ingredients. On my machine, the order is: (warm) water, other liquids (honey, oil, buttermilk or kefir), anything else (salt, dough enhancer, oats, flax, etc), flour, and then yeast on top… make a small well in the flour for the yeast and make sure the yeast doesn’t touch anything but flour. You could put it on the dough setting and then take it out for its final rise in the pan. Good luck!
What kind of mill do you use for your wheat?
I use a Nutrimill and love it. I purchased it through Pleasant Hill Grains online. Excellent company and good quality machine!
I’m so excited to have found this website!! I’m making bread today and decided to soak it. I mixed all the ingredients together that are required just for the soaking for 24 hours. However, the consistency is dough like. When I hear the word soak, I think of something sitting in a liquid. Is that the consistency it’s supposed to be for soaking? Thanks so much.
Yes, this recipe will be more dough-like, but still moist and sticky. If you follow the directions it should work perfectly fine.
We tried this recipe and it made WAY more dough than our mixer can handle. Do you have tips for making just ONE loaf? Also, what size loaf pan do you use?
If you divide the recipe by four, you can use that to make one loaf, although it would be easier to make two loaves by just dividing the recipe in half. I use 4 1/2x 8 1/2 in bread pans. They are glass pyrex pans and they work beautifully for this bread.
Hi, you may never see this comment because it’s so late, but I was wondering if you could tell me if I could use store bought kefir for the soak. Although, I make homemade yogurt, and wondered if that would work, too. Maybe I’ll just go for it and try it, but if anybody knows if I could use either of these, it might save me a little bit of money.
Thanks! Love your site!
Yes, most definitely! Both options are perfectly adequate for the job
Hi,
Do you take the bread out of the oven after rising to preheat so you can bake it or do you keep the bread in the oven while preheating?
Chrissy
Yes, I simply keep it in the oven for the whole process of the second rising, preheating and baking. I don’t take the loaves out at all. If you took them out they might be shocked at the temperature change and cause the loaves to fall.
What a great tip. So, do you not cover for the second rise? Or just remove covering b/f turing on the oven?
No, I remove the cover for the second rise so that I can immediately turn on the oven without opening the door after it is done rising and start the baking process.
If you leave it in the oven for the whole process, when do you start timing??
I never worry about preheating my oven. In fact, I believe it to be a waste of electricity. I simply start my timer as soon as I turn on my oven. This works perfectly fine without wasting time and electricity to preheat it.
I have made two loaves of bread so far and I have one question. My loaves are pretty and look perfect, but if sliced thin, for a sandwich, the middle doesn’t hold up. What could I be doing wrong? Here is my recipe.
1 ½ cups hot water
½ cup oil ( 1/3 cup if use egg)
¼ cup honey
4 ½ cups fresh milled flour
2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp yeast
I put these ingredients into a breadmachine and let it make the dough. This process includes about a 1 hour rise. Then i take it out and knead it a few times. Then shape it and put it into my bread pan to rise for about 30 minutes. Then I bake it at 375 for about 30 minutes.
My only suggestion is that it sounds like the gluten has not fully developed yet in the kneading process. Make sure to kneed for a full 8-10 minutes. Pull out a chunk of dough and slowly stretch it apart between your fingers. If it stretches easily (5-6 inches easily) then it is fully developed, but if it tears quickly allow it to kneed for a few more minutes. Hope that helps!
[...] a bit more sweetener in ours), pancakes (good, but I want to use real buttermilk next time), and whole wheat bread (yummy….every bit as good as un-soaked!). I’m really wanting to figure out the granola [...]
After getting my grain mill a few months back I just hadn’t found a yeast bread recipe that we all loved. This is it!!! Even my husband who’s not as crazy about whole grain baked goods agrees (thus two loaves gone in the first day!). Add in the benefits of soaking and it’s just perfect. Thank you!