Honey Wheat Bread

This Honey Wheat Bread is so soft and flavorful, you'll be craving a thick slice with butter morning, noon, and night. It's a delicious home baked loaf to suit all your bread needs.

I grew up eating store bought white sandwich bread. We were never fancy enough to have actual Wonder Bread, so it was the store brand. I was such an obnoxious child, I even had the crusts cut off. I later graduated to the most mild wheat breads, but nothing too seedy. To this day, I still eat mostly store bought sliced bread for sandwiches and toast.

Home baked bread seems too special to waste on PB&J somehow. So much effort and patience has to go into the kneading and the rising. The scent is so heavenly, it gives me a slight feeling of reverence. So when I take the time to bake actual bread, it often ends up being a meal unto itself. Slathered in a thick layer of butter, sometimes a drizzle of honey, I love to just sink my teeth into the pillowy goodness.

What makes this Honey Wheat Bread so awesome?

This Honey Wheat Bread is so full of flavor. The depth from the whole wheat flour and the slight hint of sweetness from the honey are perfectly balanced with the salt and the fermented flavor of yeast. It's so moist and soft, it's well worth enjoying all on its own. Of course, you could make sandwiches with it, and it would be awesome. This is also a great loaf for soup dipping.

My favorite way to eat it is to cut into while it's still warm, add lots of butter, a touch of honey, and then slowly chew each piece, letting the flavors flood my senses. It's a beautiful thing.

Magical Properties of Honey

Can you imagine the first human ancestor who discovered the magic of honey? How brave she must have been to tangle with the bees to procure their sweet offering. Is it any wonder it's now thought of as a deeply magical ingredient? With its sweetness, honey can boost the attraction power of any spell. Its association with bees also makes it great in spells for hard work and abundance. Use honey to call in the energy of the sun and the element of air as well as sensuality and fertility. (Source: Moon, Magic, Mixology by Julia Halina Hadas)

To learn more about the magical properties of the ingredients in this recipe, check the Kitchen Magick page.

Ingredients

Here's everything you'll need to make this bread. The full details are in the recipe card below.

• Warm water - it should feel warm to the touch, but not hot
• Honey - experiment with different single origin honeys if you want to get fancy
• Yeast
• Vegetable oil - anything neutral
• Flour - we're using both all-purpose and whole wheat combined
• Salt
• Oats - rolled oats are just to sprinkle on the top, so you can leave them out if you really want to

Tips for making Honey Wheat Bread

This is super easy, especially if you make it in a stand mixer with the dough hook. You'll start by mixing your warm water and honey, then stirring in the yeast in the bottom of the mixing bowl and leaving it to bloom for a few minutes. Your yeast should be foamy. If not, it's probably dead and you'll need to get fresh yeast and start again.

Then simply add the remaining ingredient and ingredients and stir to combine. Then knead the dough until it's smooth. All of this can happen in your stand mixer if you have one, or you can mix and knead it by hand. Whatever turns you on. You want a smooth but not too sticky dough ball. You may need to add a touch more flour, but go slowly so your bread stays moist and light.

Then let it rise, punch down your dough and transfer it to a loaf pan, then let it rise again. Sprinkle some oats over the top, pop it in the oven, and bake until it's golden brown and beautifully risen. Let it cool for as long as you can stand on a wire rack, then dig in.

This Honey Wheat Bread is absolutely dreamy. It's good for everything but also too good to eat with anything other than butter. In short, it's extremely awesome.

Looking for more awesome bread recipes? Try this gorgeous Garlic & Herb Focaccia Bread or some sunny Tear & Share Flower Bread.

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Recipe slightly adapted from Joy Food Sunshine.