Whole Wheat Bread: What a Heavenly Scent

What? I haven’t shared my recipe for Whole Wheat Bread with you? How did I overlook that?

I shared on the Grace on Parade blog (see article here)about my competitive bread baking and how the need to practice making bread turned into a ministry of the love loaf, but I failed to give you the recipe. Let me make amends right now and share my recipe for homemade Whole Wheat Bread.

You don’t have to be a competitive bread baker to wrap someone with the aroma of homemade bread. Even if it is just your family or guests in your home, homemade bread bears the scent of extra time spent for someone else.

Bread recipes are very adaptable. I use dry milk powder because it’s more convenient – I don’t have to heat up milk and dirty an extra dish. Back in the day, milk powder was cheaper than bottled milk. With $.99 specials at some Walmart’s and Aldi’s, that’s not true anymore. You also can use brown sugar or molasses instead of the honey. I prefer honey because it helps preserve the bread longer, but honey is expensive and I don’t always have it on hand so I opt for brown sugar.

Here’s my recipe for homemade Whole Wheat Bread.

Karen’s Homemade Whole Wheat Bread

This is an original recipe that I've made many times ever since my 4-H days. It's a winner every time.

Print Recipe

Equipment

• Kitchen Aid or other heavy duty mixer with a dough hook

Ingredients

• 1/2 cups warm water (105-115 degrees F.)
• 2 Tbsp (pkgs) active dry yeast
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup oil or stick margarine, softened
• 1/3 cup homey, or brown sugar
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 4 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (about)

Instructions

• Mix water (105-115) and yeast. Add sugar, salt, margarine, honey, milk, and beaten egg.  Stir flours together.
• Beat in half the flour till smooth and batter falls in sheets from a wooden spoon.  Add enough flour to make a soft dough.  Knead ten minutes, until smooth.
• Let rise in warm place till double in bulk, about 1 hour.  Punch down, shape into loaves, place in two greased 9×5 pans.  Let rise till double, about 30 minutes.  Bake at 400 degrees25-30 minutes.  Turn out on wire racks and grease tops.

Notes

Note that you can use either honey or brown sugar, depending on the taste you want to give the bread and what you have on hand.