For May’s #makebread365 challenge, it is Artisan Bread!
While I’m still working on sourdough with 100% freshly milled wheat at the moment, this bread will do for now when I want that beautiful artisan look.
BONUS: This bread can be served hot and fresh right out of the oven! Delicious!
Just use my Simple Yeast Bread Loaf Recipe below and watch the video for how I adapt it to this artisan style!
Simple Yeast Bread with Freshly Milled Grains
This is my go-to recipe for my nice, big loaves. These are perfect for sandwiches, toast, whatever you use a bread loaf for. Nice and soft and delicious!
Equipment
- Grain Mill
Ingredients
- 9 - 9 1/2 cups freshly milled wheat hard red wheat, hard white wheat, or a combination. Mill about 6 cups of wheat berries.
- 3 3/4 cups water
- 2 1/4 TB yeast
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/2 cup oil I prefer to use olive oil
- 3 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
- To proof the yeast: Combine the warm water, yeast, and 3 cups of flour. Mix together and let it sit, covered, for about 15-20 minutes until nice and bubbly.
- After proofing, add the honey, oil, salt, and remaining 6 cups of flour (to be safe, add 5 more and go from there). Mix by hand or a mixer (if using a mixer, make sure you have the dough hook attachment) until the dough is pulling away from the sides of the bowl. If more flour is needed, only add a little at a time!
- Once dough is pulling away from sides of bowl, it's time to knead. If you're mixing with a mixer, set the timer for 9-10 minutes to knead. If kneading by hand, knead for about 15-20 minutes until dough is soft and stretchy.
- Once dough is kneaded - it should be soft, stretchy, and SLIGHTLY sticky - fold into three loaves and put in greased 9x5 bread pans. If needed, lightly dust your hands and the counter with flour to make the dough easy to work with. Do NOT add too much flour otherwise your bread will be too dense. Rise until bread dough is about 1 inch above the pan.
- Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 35 minutes until loaves are a rich medium brown.
- Rest the bread in pans for about 10 minutes then remove onto cooling rack
- Rest the bread until cool before slicing.
Notes
This recipe can easily be halved, doubled, or tripled! Want a cheat sheet to know how much to use for smaller or bigger batches? Check out my FREE Ingredients Cheat Sheet!
If you want smaller loaves, just divide the dough to the size you want. For a more precise loaf, weigh the dough to make 1lb loaves or whatever size you want.
This recipe works GREAT in the Pullman pan. Just weigh the dough to match your pan. For example, if you have the 1lb Pullman pan you need to weigh 1lb of dough. For the 2lb Pullman pan, weigh 2lbs of dough.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Kudos to you for making it your own. I have strugggled to get a whole grain, freshly milled sourdough and in the end my fix was to sprinkle a little instant yeast into the dough at the end of bulk fermentation. Cheating? Maybe. Do I care? Not really! As my Nana says, “you do you honey!”
Honestly, I have thought about that myself lol You still have the full benefit of the sourdough, just a bit of an “oomf” as help at the end!
Love this recipe and your video is super helpful. I have made bread before, so that helped, but it turned out great on my first attempt with fresh milled grains. If it weren’t for your video I don’t think I would have had the same success!
I have been using this recipe for a while now and absolutely love it. Love all your recipes. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Felicia! I just made your yeast bread recipe for the first time today. It turned out amazing!!! I like to also do sourdough bread and I see a reference here to sourdough, but where do you incorporate it to the recipe? Or is there another sourdough recipe for sandwich bread? Thank you for your recipes. Your YouTube channel is also very educational and I love how you apply a lot of your products back to Jesus. Thank you and hope to hear back in regards to the sourdough soon. -Cindy
Hi Cindy! I do not have a sourdough recipe at the present time. I am also not sure if this will convert well to sourdough either!
Love this recipe. One thing…My loaf was still on the denser side and took forever to rise (I use Active dry yeast). Like 2+ hours and it still wasn’t 1 inch above pan. Did I get too impatient?
I have one Norpro XL loaf pan. inside bottom dimension is 10.75″. Should I use the recipe as is for a loaf in that pan?
Yes, that sounds just fine.
This bread turns out delicious every time but it isn’t shapeable. I need to plop it in the pans. There is no way I could knead by hand if push came to shove or shape into an artisan loaf. I use all 9.5 cups flour from freshly milled hard red wheat. What could be happening?
I would love your sourdough recipe with freshly milled flour when you get it figured out. I’ve struggled to get a recipe I like.
This recipe is wonderful. I have just started milling and have made this recipe twice. It turned out great both times. My loaves were a little off kilter the first time I tried it. Way better on my 2nd try. I brought some bread to my boss and he said it was the best bread he had ever eaten in his life. Thank you for sharing such a great recipe.
I am trying to graduate from my bread machine, and this was my first attempt at hand kneading. it came out tasting incredible!! the shape was off but I’m sure I can improve that as I go. thank you so much!
This is my 5th batch, I can’t get the dough to rise , I’ve been making bread for 30 years and I am so frustrated.
Check your yeast. When you proof with the yeast, little flour, and water you should see bubbles and it rising a bit after 15 minutes. If that isn’t happening your yeast is bad and you need to throw it out. Also, check to see what yeast you’re using. Active yeast MUST be proofed to activate it and it will take longer to rise. Instant yeast is what I used in this recipe!