Homemade Honey Wheat Bread! No preservatives!!

Since we began our journey to eat healthier and more organic, one of the hardest items for us to find was a good tasting organic or natural bread.

So, I have been searching the web and found many similar recipes, but as you all know, I can not physically make and knead bread dough! I did find a few good sounding recipes that used a bread machine {but we didn't have a bread machine, use to have one years ago; but it was never used and therefore donated to Goodwill years and years ago} 

I thought, if I donated a good working bread machine, maybe someone else did also. We have a Goodwill literally about one block from our house, so I decided that I would go and just look. 

Well, to my surprise there were THREE just sitting on the shelf. I was able to eliminate one quickly as it only made a very small loaf of bread, and finally I decided on the Breadman Plus. It is able to make up to a 2 pound loaf of bread.

I couldn't wait to get home and try it out. The recipes that I found were either for the smaller loaves or for a larger loaf of bread. So, I tweaked a couple of them and came up with this one.

Honey Wheat Bread

2 Cups Water {warm, but not hot}

3 Tablespoons Butter cut in small pieces

1/4 cup Honey {raw unfiltered organic}

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

4  Cups Flour {King Arthur unbleached 100% whole wheat}

1 package of yeast

All ingredients were placed in the bread machine and set to whole wheat bread setting. I did nothing but pour the ingredients in, no stirring at all! It did, however take about 3-3 1/2 hours from start to finish.

If you do not have a bread machine, just mix all ingredients melt the butter and add the yeast to the water melted butter, and salt, then add honey and flour, let rise in bowl, punch down and place in greased (use butter) bread pan and let rise again. Bake 350 degrees for 30-50 minutes depending on your size of bread pan. 

My hubby and kids started to slice and eat it before I was able to take a picture...so, it was a bit larger than this picture shows! Oh, and did I say how wonderful the house smelled while it was baking? Boy do I love the smell of homemade bread baking!