100% Whole Wheat Honey Bread (Recipe Update)

This recipe is an update of a recipe first published here.


I've been making four loaves of whole wheat bread about twice a month for close to two years now. I even made it through the first trimester of my first pregnancy and a couple of hot summers (sans a/c) without missing a step. Here is an update to show you what I've learned and how I've tweaked the recipe over the last dozens of batches.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread, 2 Loaves

2 ¼ - 2 ½ cups whey or milk, lukewarm
2 T to 2T + 2 t active dry yeast
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup honey, maple syrup, or molasses (use 2/3 to 3/4 cup if you want noticeably sweet bread)
1 T table salt
0 to 6 T vital wheat gluten (that 0 means the gluten is optional)
6 to 7 cups whole wheat flour (2+ pounds)

 Dough forming a ball in the mixer (left) and after the final rise (right).

1. In a standing mixer, mix milk, yeast, oil, honey, salt, gluten and 5 cups whole wheat flour (5 ½ cups if you are not using gluten) until well combined.  Then continue kneading on level “2” (on Kitchenaid standing mixer) for 5-10 minutes.  You may want to stop mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides. 
2. Let sit 1 minute.  Then add 1-2 more cups whole wheat flour (1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time) until the dough pulls away from sides of the bowl and forms a ball, but still sticks to the bottom of the ball some. 
3. Cover dough (I use a plate) and let rise until double in size. In the summer in my non-air-conditioned home, this takes less than one hour. But in the winter or anytime the dough is taking way too long to rise, I turn on your oven for a minute or so and put the dough inside the warm oven (now turned off) to accelerate rising. 
4. Grease (I use butter) 2 loaf pans. I use Pyrex 8.5” pans - which I can wash in the dishwasher after using.  Knead very briefly  to press out air bubbles and form 2 logs/loaves on oiled surface and place in pans.  Cover with lightweight towel and allow to rise 1-2 more hours, until dough crests about one  inch over the edge of the pan.  If the dough starts to falls, you let it go too long. You can use the oven (as in step 3) to accelerate rising once again, but I warn you that it's harder to keep your eye on how far it's risen when it's behind the oven door. If you don't use gluten, don't let it rise as high (photo above might be too high without gluten).
5. Heat oven to 350.  Bake bread 30-40 minutes, until 190 degrees internally.  After 10 to 15 minutes, lightly cover the bread with foil to avoid over-browning the top.
6. Allow bread to cool 10+ minutes on rack, then use a knife around the edges to help ease the loaf out of the pan.
7. Allow bread to thoroughly cool on rack before freezing or slicing. 

Checking the temperature of the finished loaf.

Numerous Notes

Bake in Bulk
I make four loaves of bread at a time, but my mixer can’t handle that much whole wheat dough, so I make the above recipe for 2 loaves, put the dough in a separate stainless steel bowl to rise, and then immediately make another batch of dough, and allow that to rise in the Kitchenaid standing mixer mixing bowl.  An hour or two later, I form all four loaves at once, let them rise, and then bake them all together.  I only have to wash my baking tools and mixer bowl once for 4 loaves. My family immediately devours at least half of a loaf.  I freeze 2 or 3 of the other loaves.

I make 4 loaves of bread at a time by making 

the above recipe 2 times in a row. 

Rising Time
Rising time will depend on your altitude and kitchen temperature.  In the summer, each rise many take less than one hour. But in the winter, when my house is 60 degrees it may take 3 hours or more.  As noted above, to accelerate rising, you can put your dough in a warm oven, or any other warm place (just run dishwasher, etc.). Also, I live near sea level.  If you live at a high altitude, you may need to make other adjustments, like using less yeast (to avoid an over-fast rise).  You’ll want to check a more authoritative source for info on that kind of thing.


If you need to slow down or stop rising at any point, put it in the refrigerator. When you are ready to carry on, simply take the dough out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature and follow the recipe as written.

Ingredients
I always use 2 1/2 cups milk or other liquid because I live in a pretty dry climate. If it's raining that day, I just end up using more flour. I most often use whey (from straining homemade yogurt) for the liquid because it's a good way to use it up. If I don't have whey, I'll use soy milk or cow milk, sometimes with as much as 1/2 cup water if necessary in each batch, if I don't have enough milk.

I've fiddled with the amount of yeast and haven't found that it makes a huge difference. I tried less salt, and definitely didn't like that as much, by the way. Sometimes I'll make the first batch with 2T yeast, and the second with 2T + 2 t yeast in the hopes that they will reach the same happy rising place at the same time. If you are trying to conserve yeast for some reason, I think you're good with 2 T.

Two batches in 5 qt. bowls at the end of the first rise,
ready to be formed into 4 loaves.

I've upped the oil to 1/2 cup and I like it better that way. I use organic canola oil because it's tasteless, but I've also used olive oil (not extra virgin). Use the same measuring cup for the oil and the honey, and the honey will slide right out.

I lowered the honey to 1/2 cup. Not as sweet, but still works. You can use 2/3 or 3/4 cup honey for sweeter bread, but for some things (turkey sandwich), not-so-sweet bread is preferred. I used maple syrup once when I was low on honey, and although I couldn't really detect any maple flavor, the bread was divine. Seriously delicious. Note that maple syrup is more expensive than honey. But for that short period when my daughter is not yet one-year-old but already eating wheat, I'll be making my bread with maple syrup to avoid her ingesting any raw honey before the age of one. I haven't tried molasses yet, but I know it can be done and I'm sure it's delicious (I've loved other whole wheat bread recipes that include molasses), but molasses does have a strong (stronger than honey or maple syrup) and distinctive flavor.

I've stopped using added gluten. I ran out and I didn't buy more. It comes in powdered form and has a limited shelf life, unlike the wheat berries I grind (see below), which can be stored in air tight containers in a cool place nearly indefinitely. I hope to never ever have to give up gluten foods, and not adding gluten is sort of my way of playing on the safe side (although I have no research to back this choice up, but my gluten-intolerant sister thinks it's probably best not to push my luck). On the other hand, gluten improves the texture of your bread and increases its protein content. Without gluten, if I let my bread rise too far, it usually has a whole in the top in the middle of the loaf. For photos of loaves made with different amounts of gluten, click here. The first and last photos in this post are of loaves made with no gluten.


I grind my own hard red whole wheat flour using a Nutrimill grain mill, which I love, but it’s very expensive.  You can use hard red or hard white wheat berries for grinding, or store-bought whole wheat flour or white whole wheat flour.  Whole wheat berries last a long time and are very cheap so you can buy them in bulk.  Whole wheat flour does not last long so don't buy too much at once. Store whole wheat flour in the fridge or freezer to increase its shelf-life. If you end up making lots of homemade bread, make sure you buy your ingredients in bulk, which will save you tons of money.

The total amount of flour you use will vary depending on what type you use.  The amount of flour you need also will significantly vary depending on how accurately you measure your liquid ingredients (milk, oil and honey). In general, I don’t measure my liquid ingredients too carefully. The amount of flour you use also depends on the humidity of your climate.  I use significantly less flour in the winter than in the summer, and significantly more flour on a rainy day.  So add flour until the dough forms a ball, and then don’t add any more. 

Clean Up
I try to make sure my dishwasher is relatively empty by the evening of the day I make bread, even if I have to run a slightly less than full load earlier in the day. If I put the four glass loaf pans and two stainless steel bowls into the dishwasher (the Kitchenaid mixer bowl is dishwasher safe) and run the load the same day I made the bread, everything comes out perfectly clean. But it takes up almost the entire bottom rack of the dishwasher. Morning after usually works too. Toss into the dishwasher your measuring cups and spoons as well, and you have four loaves of bread with no hand-washing required for clean up. That's my kind of baking.

If you try the recipe, please let me know how it goes!