Even before the pandemic started, I realized I didn’t like hardly any of the commercial loaves of bread I was finding in stores.

Not only that, most seemed to have a list of a hundred ingredients, half of which were unpronounceable chemicals. It was like, how can I justify putting this poison inside me every day?

I wanted more control. And, I wanted to be healthier, lean and mean, while still enjoying bread, as I’ve always loved it.

I’m not anti-wheat. I don’t have celiac disease. True stone ground whole wheat sounded (and tasted) wonderful to me. So this is the recipe I found, which I could live with.

Oh – this is a non-knead bread recipe. I forgot to mention I’m pretty lazy and don’t want to work that hard for my toast!

Simple Whole Wheat Bread

There are only four things in this bread: flour, water, salt and yeast. That’s it. No preservatives, no added seeds or flavorings or toppings – though, for sure, you can add things if you want.

But the basic recipe is really simple.

You will need:

4 cups of Whole Wheat Flour

2 Cups of White All-Purpose or Bread Flour

Salt (1 Tablespoon)

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Yeast (1.5-2 Tablespoons) I use instant yeast.

Combine all the flour in a big enough bowl. You can sift it together or mix it up in some way (I don’t have a sifter so I use a wire whisk which seems to work fine).

In a separate bowl, mix the yeast and salt with about 3 cups of warmish water. I also use the previously employed whisk to smooth out clumps in this yeasty soup.

Then comes the only passably difficult part of this entire process: Adding the flour to the yeasty water and mixing it all up. Do this a little at a time. I use a big wooden spoon for stirring the batter which very quickly turns into a big ball of dough. It may seem that there’s just not enough liquid for this much flour but keep stirring and mixing and I promise it will work (or, add a few drops more of water here and there if it just isn’t happening).

At some point the spoon is no longer effective so I grease up my hands with some olive oil and ensure the ball of dough is totally mixed by using my hands. Now, you should have a nice warm ball of dough in your bowl. Congrats, the hard part is done. Cover it with a kitchen towel and set your timer for 2 hours, to let it rise.

This recipe is for round loaves, so I use a simple cookie sheet for the second rise and for baking. Grease the sheet and divide the risen dough into two (or more, if you want smaller loaves) balls, place apart on the sheet (to allow for more rising), and cover again with your kitchen towel. Set your timer for 40 minutes for the second rise.

Baking the Bread

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees, and set it to bake. I like a thicker, crustier crust, so I put a cup or two of hot water into a pan in the oven underneath the bread just before putting the loaves into the oven.

Also, just before baking – since we want our bread to look pretty – I use a serrated knife to cut a few little grooves across the top of the dough (which also makes slicing easier once baked).

Bake the newly risen round loaves for 20 minutes at 450. Remove and allow to cool before slicing. (Ovens vary, so you may have to fiddle with cooking time slightly. On my ancient apartment electric oven, I usually bake these babies for 21 minutes.)

So there you have it – your own homemade bread and you know exactly what’s in it, since you made it yourself! As a single mature man with a household of one, these two loaves usually last me 7 – 10 days.

I slice these loaves up in large chunks and freeze them in bags right after baking. That way my bread is always fresh, never stale or spoiled. This bread is great for sandwiches, toast, and to accompany dishes like stews, perfect for the fast-approaching heartier times of year.

(Entire process takes 3 hours plus whatever time it takes you to mix the ingredients together and mix the dough into the ball – say maybe 15 min. So let’s say 3 hours, 15 minutes total.)