Easy Whole Wheat Artisan Bread (No Knead!)
Whole Wheat Artisan Bread – sounds fancy pantsy and like you bought it in an experience boulangerie en France but is actually the easiest yeast bread you will ever make!
Do you like making yeast breads at home? Up until earlier this year I was seriously intimidated to work with yeast and I felt like the idea of making homemade bread was wayyyyyyy out of my league. The idea of working with yeast and the time waiting for the bread to rise just seemed like too much work to go through for one loaf of bread until I made this Easy Whole Wheat Artisan Bread.
Bread Making couldn’t be easier, friends. Plus, look at how g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s freshly baked bread is straight out of the oven. With this Easy Whole Wheat Artisan Bread your home will be smelling like the inside of a French boulangerie in no time!
First, mix your ingredients in a bowl. The only thing you really have to think about here is using fresh yeast. Don’t use the yeast that’s been collecting dust at the back of your pantry for years because it probably won’t do much good in this bread. Use fresh yeast that you recently purchased for the best results!
There are no fancy ingredients here just flour, sea salt, dark brown cane sugar (which you can substitute with regular dark brown sugar or regular sugar and a bit of molasses), some oats and seeds. The dark brown sugar in this bread makes sure that your Whole Wheat Artisan Bread is soft and delicious – don’t leave the sugar out of this bread! And you can have fun with the seeds, play around with the seeds with any nuts or seeds you have in the kitchen. I have a feeling that walnuts would taste perfect in this loaf!
Cover your Easy Whole Wheat Artisan Bread and leave it to rise overnight. This is the fun part. I love peaking at the bread while it rises. Cooking with yeast is like a slow magic show, ha! 😀
The next steps are even easier, shape your dough into a ball and bake it in any pre-heated dutch oven or casserole dish with a lid. If you don’t have a casserole dish with a lid you can just use aluminium foil. This truly is as easy as bread making gets!
Leave your bread to cool and make sure you have a hot bowl of soup ready to go to dip this Easy Whole Wheat Artisan Brad into. This bread made a cameo a few months ago in my Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup. Honestly, this bread + tomato soup = what dreams are made of! 😉
Have a wonderful week friends!
If you do try this Easy Whole Wheat Artisan Bread I LOVE hearing about it! Insta it to me @CearasKitchen with hashtag #CearasKitchen (so I don’t miss it!), Tweet it to me @CearasKitchen or Facebook it to me via the Ceara’s Kitchen Facebook Page! <3
Easy Whole Wheat Artisan Bread
- Total Time: 50 mins
- Yield: 1 pound loaf 1x
Description
This Easy Whole Wheat Artisan Bread is as easy as bread making gets. It has a delicious golden crust on top and is filled with air bubbles inside just like bread from a French boulangerie. It makes the best sandwiches and tastes perfect dipped in tomato soup!
Ingredients
- 3 cups whole wheat flour
- 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 1/2 tbsp dark brown cane sugar (OR dark brown sugar*)
- 2 tbsp oats
- 1 1/2 tbsp pumpkin seeds/sunflower seeds
- 1 1/2 tbsp chia seeds
- 1 1/2 tbsp ground flax seeds
- 1 1/2 cups water
Instructions
- Combine Dough: In a large bowl, combine the flour, yeast, sea salt, dark brown cane sugar, oats and seeds. Add the water and combine until the dough comes together. Do not overwork the dough – the less you work the dough the softer your bread will be. The dough will be sticky and shaggy looking but that is okay. Form it into a make shift ball, cover dish with plastic wrap and let sit for 12 – 20 hours (I let mine rise overnight).
- Second Rise: The dough will have risen quite a bit and be covered in bubbles (see photo). Flour your work surface and transfer the dough to the floured area. Form the dough into a round shape with slightly dampened hands (making sure not to overwork the dough). It doesn’t have to be perfectly shaped. Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel and leave to rise for an hour.
- Bake and Eat: Preheat the oven to 450F/230C. Place a Dutch oven or deep Pyrex-like casserole dish (without the lid) into the oven to preheat for 30 minutes while the dough is rising. Carefully remove the hot baking dish from the oven and place the dough ball into the ungreased baking dish. Cover the dish and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for 15 – 20 minutes until the top of the bread is golden brown. Remove the loaf from the oven and leave it to cool before slicing.
Notes
1) You can also use regular AP flour in this recipe.
2) Substitute dark brown cane sugar with regular (cane) sugar + 1 tsp molasses
3) You can really customize this bread with ANY seeds/nuts you like. Feel free to substitute in your own seeds with what you have on hand.
4) If you do not have a lid you can use aluminium foil instead.
- Cook Time: 50 mins
- Cuisine: Breads
