The bread is soft and airy with a buttery crust. With only 5 ingredients, it will turn out every time you make it. Slice this honey wheat bread for your morning toast with butter and jam, or use it to make a sandwich at lunchtime. Once you enjoy this loaf, you may never purchase store-bought bread again.

Ingredients

8 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp salt

1 ½ Tbsp instant yeast 

¼ cup honey (HoneyPlanet all types is best! )

3½ cups water

2 Tbsp butter melted – use at the very end! NOT with the wet ingredients.

Instructions

1. Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl or the bowl of a standing mixer.
2. Add honey and 2 cups water with the mixer on. Let it mix together for a about 1 minute.
3. Gradually add the final cup of water and add more if necessary. The dough should stick to the bottom of the bowl but clean the sides and be sticky to the touch. If you add too much water, don’t worry! Just add a bit more flour to get it back to the right consistency.
4. Knead 6-8 minutes in a mixer or 8-10 minutes by hand until the dough is smooth and elastic. Don’t skimp on the kneading! This helps create the structure of the bread.
5. Let the dough raise (covered, room temperature) in the same bowl you mixed it in for 1 hour or until doubled.

6. Remove from bowl gently and form into 2 loaves. This is most easily done by creating a crease in the middle of the piece of dough with your palm and then folding the dough over the crease and pinching it together at the bottom, just imagine folding a piece of paper in half and gluing the bottom shut. Repeat this a few times until you have a smooth loaf shape. You may have to tuck the long ends in a few times as well.

7. Place in greased bread loaf pans and raise (covered, room temperature) 1 hour or until doubled.
8. Preheat oven to 375ºF.
9. Bake at 375 degrees F for 25 minutes, remove from oven and brush each loaf with a tablespoon of butter.
10. Return to oven and bake 5-10 more minutes, or until golden brown. The internal temperature of the bread should read right around 200 degrees F.

Prep Time 2 hours 20 minutes                      Cook Time 35 minutes                      Total Time 2 hours 55 minutes                       Servings 30 slices                          Calories 137kcal