To learn more about baking Amish Friendship Bread with whole wheat flour, check out this FAQ: Baking with Whole Wheat Flour. Slice some up and use them to make these waffled Monte Cristo sandwiches for a fun twist.
Whole Wheat Bread
Slice and serve this 100% Whole Wheat Amish Friendship Bread for your next lunch buffet.
Ingredients
Instructions
- In a stand mixer bowl, stir together warm water, honey, and yeast. Let sit for about 10 minutes.
- Next, add starter, oil, eggs, salt, wheat gluten, and 4 cups of the flour and mix.
- Gradually add remaining flour until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.
- While dough is in the mixing bowl, knead for about 8 to 10 minutes. By the time the kneading is over, the sides of the bowl should be clean.
- Oil bottom and sides of a large bowl. Put dough into bowl and cover. (Let rise in the mixer bowl.)
- Let dough stand about three hours (or until doubled) at room temperature.
- Finally, punch dough down and divide into three equal balls.
- Grease three loaf pans.
- On a floured surface, knead each ball, shape into loaves and place into greased loaf pans.
- Cover and let stand about two hours or until risen.
- Preheat oven to 350° F (175° C).
- Bake 30-40 minutes (Cover with foil after lightly browned to prevent a dark crust.)
- ENJOY!
Notes
If this bread is too sweet for your taste you can half the amount of sugar added to Day 6 and Day 10 of the starter. This change will not affect the baking of the bread. You can also freeze one cup of starter on Day 10, take it out, thaw it, and bake with it whenever you need more bread.
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I went off script a little and tried letting it rise overnight without adding any extra yeast (just the water from that step) and it rose beautifully! I’ve been doing sourdough for a little while and found out about AFB from a friend mentioning wanting to try it and found your recipe for starting a SFB starter using a sourdough starter. so she has one, I have another two in the fridge and three loaves of bread just out of the oven. can’t wait for them to cool to try them! I am going to do a batch by the books with added yeast to see how different the taste is, but like the over night rise because it give more time to ferment the gluten to make it easier to digest. I also love that this makes three loaves of bread! I can make a batch, have one to freeze for later and still have one to give away!
Can this recipe be made in a Bread Machine?
I’ve made this recipe 3 times, following the instructions and measurements exactly each time, & each time it never rises. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but I’m super frustrated.
Do u have a recipe for 1 loaf instead of 3
Hi Cheryl! We haven’t tried this before, but you could probably cut amounts of the recipe into a third and make one loaf. Let us know if you try!
Can this recipe be made in a bread maker? I have one I haven’t used in forever and I’d love to use my Amish Friendship starter and get my bread maker out of the garage!
Hi BJ! We haven’t tried to make this recipe in a bread machine before, but you can definitely experiment with your bread machine! Here’s a post that may help with figuring out how to convert the recipe to work in your machine: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2018/04/30/how-to-convert-recipes-to-a-bread-machine
We do also have a bread machine Amish Friendship Bread recipe here, if you’d like to try it: https://www.friendshipbreadkitchen.com/bread-machine-afb/
Made 3 great loaves yesterday–but reduced sugar to 2 tablespoons. My starter was made with soy milk and only 1/3 cup sugar at it’s feeding. We are reducing sugars and all artificial ingredients (pudding ect). These loaves were very close to my idea of sour dough. Using more starter today for biscotti,
Can I make this bread using my potato starter?
Hi Glo — We haven’t swapped this with a potato starter since we mostly use the Amish Friendship Bread starter, but others have said they swap the starters without a problem. You just want to make sure you use an active starter for this bread — your starter should be bubbly/foamy and not flat. Let us know how it turns out!
Yes . I did, worked great!
Do you know the nutritional information of the 100% whole wheat Amish friendship bread?
This would be great for figuring Weight Watchers Points.
Hi Wayne!
I don’t know what the points would be, but I agree it would be handy to know! Weight Watchers has a paid plan that has a points calculator: https://www.weightwatchers.com/help/index.aspx?pageid=1068371. Hope this helps and if you ever find out what the points are for this recipe, let us know! 🙂
I am definitely going to start up an old tradition with my family with my family-of-friends Amanda and Lauren who both bought new homes this past year, and this wheat bread recipe is what I want to try first once I start it!
I would like to try this!
Has anyone put the dough in the refrigerator after it raises once and make roll or bread the next day?
if I make this in a clay baker, do I use the same temp (350) or use the artisan temp of 425?
This is a great recipe! I followed Bessy’s advice and used 2 TBLSP sugar instead of 1/4 cup. I also used 4 cups wheat flour and 2 cups white. My husband and I loved it! This is going to be a recipe I use a lot! It made 2 regular size loaves (not 3) for me.
I also did half and half on the flour, and I added some instant coffee and some cocoa like another wheat bread recipe that I’ve done before. It turned out great and made a loaf and a pan of rolls in a muffin tin.
This is a wonderful recipe. Cutting the sugar to two tablespoons instead of 1/4 cup gives just enough sweet for everyday bread. Also, I use 3 c. whole wheat bread flour and around 3 c. regular whole wheat flour. My husband used to be the dedicated bread baker, but this recipe has changed that!