I decided to make my own bread today. After flipping through recipes I found one that I thought would be good. I was looking for a recipe with the least amount of animal products and processed products. And since this was my first real go at making bread (I cook, I don’t bake…at least not yet), I wanted to stay in the “simple” range. I found a recipe and tweaked it to fit what I was looking for. So here it is.
100% Whole Wheat Bread
Makes 1 loaf
INGREDIENTS
1 cup warm water
1 tbsp almond milk
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp organic sugar
1 tsp salt
3 cups wheat flour
2 tsp instant active dry yeast
1. Combine first 6 ingredients (using only 2 tbsp of the olive oil reserving the rest for later) in a large mixing bowl; stir.
2. Add flour and yeast, and knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 10-15 minutes if kneading by hand or 2-4 minutes if using a mixer. Grease a bowl with 1/2 tbsp olive oil and place the dough in the bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover with a clean towel and let rise in a warm area until doubled, about 40 minutes.
Dough ball ready to rise
3. Punch dough down; knead for a few minutes until smooth and then form into a loaf. Grease a loaf pan with 1/2 tbsp olive oil and place the dough in the loaf pan and cover. Let rise in a warm place until almost doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. If loaf starts browning too soon, lightly lay a piece of foil on top of the loaf to prevent too much darkening.
Fresh baked bread resting
5. Remove bread from oven and allow to rest in pan for a few minutes. Remove to a wire rack and cover with a cloth. Slice and enjoy while still warm! Leftover bread can be stored in an airtight bag or frozen until needed.
100% Whole Wheat Bread
Look at that beautiful loaf of bread!
The Curious Life of Shanna 
Hey there, I was searching to make 100% whole wheat bread and I think I found it. I have a bag of 100% WW flour which I bought for making muffins, cakes, etc. but I found I dont like it using just the WW so I thought to make a fresh loaf of bread with it. I was just wondering, your loaf pan seems a little bigger than mine. Mine is a large loaf pan (but looks smaller than what you used) its 9 1/2″ x 5 1/4″ x 2 5/8″. Do you think it should be okay? Also, I dont have honey but I am assuming maple syrup would be just fine, eh? Yours looks yummy! 🙂
Faranza, yes I think your pan will work fine. Maybe let it rise a little more before baking it. And maple syrup sounds great! A lot of the recipes I researched called for maple syrup. In fact, next time I make bread I’ll try maple syrup. One more hint, I would warm the bowl you are using to mix the dough. I used my Kitchen Aid mixer and it allowed the water to cool so I had a bit of trouble getting the dough to rise (I finally put it in a warm oven to rise). If you try warming the bowl let me know how that works. 🙂 Thanks for trying my recipe!!!!! Enjoy!
Hey thanks for the reply. How do you suggest I warm the bowl? Maybe run it under hot water? Or maybe stick it in the oven for a bit?
Sorry to be a pest . . . I too cook but have never baked a bread before! I just want to make sure that you did not put the yeast in some warm water to let it get active first before putting it into the first 6 ingredients. I know it doesnt say in your directions but I just wanted to double make sure. A lot of recipes calls to do this and I dont want to screw it up! Thanks again.
You know, I didn’t even think about that, putting the yeast in the water first. Makes more sense, I’d do that. I’ll make more tonight if you want to wait and see how it turns out for me. ??
Shanna 🙂
Mine is already in the bowl waiting to rise! We’ll see how it turns out. Also, I didnt have organic sugar, I just used brown sugar and instead of the honey used organic maple syrup, which I had on hand as well. Oh ya, I ended up using like 1/2 more of the olive oil because while I was kneading, it became super sticky . . . so sticky that half of the dough stuck to my hand! I know the stickier it is, the better the bread will be but I couldnt work with it. I will let you know how it turns out. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Hi again! The bread turned out pretty good for a first timer! Next time, the changes I will make are: Knead the dough with some more flour NOT add oil. I saw another video on kneading dough for bread and it shows that you may have to use an additional 1/4 to 1/2 cup of flour for this. Also, I think I will try activating the yeast with about 1/4 cup warm water and the yeast (until it becomes bubbly) then add the rest of the stuff but GRADUALLY adding the flour. My bread didnt rise as much it shoud’ve but it was still very tasty. Let me know how your bread turns out if you decide to activate the yeast first. Cheers.
Mmmmm, the ingredients list alone just makes me drool.
Making your own stuff does seem to be the only way to really control what goes into your body. It’s easy to become disheartened roaming the grocery store reading ingredient labels after you’ve been enlightened to the gnarly chemical preservatives and trash found in most every single popular product.
And while all those those “organic”, “whole grain” and “healthy” labels at the store may help you find something not AS packed full of white flour and refined sugar they mean almost nothing if you’re truly in tune with your body.
If you’re truly being generous to your body there’s no room in your diet for almost anything you find in stores other than straight ingredients(which, of course, STILL has major room for improvement and aren’t interesting to the truly scrupulous).
I do appreciate this move in the right direction though, and people who are sharing simple methods to feed ourselves without bringing us instantly closer to the grave are certainly deserving of praise.
So thanks.
I’ll be using this recipe soon for sure.
Keep them coming, maybe one day I can just do my grocery shopping by going to your blog on my phone.
Now that would be cool.
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