The Best Homemade Multigrain Bread (2024)

This recipe is truly the Bests Homemade Multigrain Bread I’ve ever baked. After years of searching for a multigrain bread that I can bake at home, I found “the one”. The flavor is perfect, and the texture bakes up light yet chewy, without being tough The not-so-secret ingredient is using a packaged 7-Grain hot cereal. I bake this every other Sunday, because I freeze one loaf for later while enjoy one loaf with our morning toast. This makes perfect toast, grilled cheese sandwiches– or any kind of sandwich.

I don’t think that anyone would argue that fresh baked bread is hard to beat. Baking homemade bread does take a little bit of practice, I know. For some, the thought of working with yeast makes them nervous. I was once of of “them”. Past loaves I’ve baked in past years, were best used as paper weights or a door stop. I’ve made loaves that didn’t rise, or were underbaked inside. At last, I have conquered my fear of working with yeast and I have come to love it! Bread baking is a science, but if you read the directions a few times– follow them without making any kind of deviations– the odds are in your favor that you will have success!

I stopped eating white bread a long time ago– once I reached adulthood and no longer had PBJ’s in my lunch box. I switched over to eating whole wheat bread — preferably a multigrain bread. But, finding a commercially made one hasn’t been easy. The cost of quality bread is sky rocketing! My favorite brand of bread has becoming harder to find, as well.

At last, I found the bread recipe that is exactly what I am looking for in a multigrain bread– flavorful, a little chewy but not tasting like wood and it’s perfect for my morning toast. This is it, my readers! I have made this four times, since I took these photos– and, as I am typing this post, I have two more loaves proofing before being baked. That’s how much I love this recipe!

I’m a big fan of Bob’s Red Mill products– and the vital ingredient for this bread is the 7-Grain Hot Cereal. I couldn’t find it at any of my grocery stores, but I managed to order mine on Amazon. NOTE: I did find the 10-Grain Hot Cereal at one of my grocery stores, and I’ve used it for this recipe with good results as well. (You can also use Arrowhead Mills brand, as well.) Using this hot cereal is pure genius, because it contains wheat, rye, triticale, oats, oat bran, barley, brown rice and flaxseed.

Add boiling water to the hot cereal mix, stirred and cooled to about 100F– this takes about an hour.

Once cooled, honey, melted butter add yeast (Preferred brand is SAF Instant Yeast, but Fleischmann’s Active Dry Yeast works as well) and stirred a bit.

Using the low setting of my stand mixer, I let the machine mix this until it formed a ball– then covered it with plastic. I learned a new term called “autolyse” where I let this dough rest for 20 minutes. Cook’s Illustrated describes this term as:

Autolyse, a resting period just after the initial mixing of water and flour that gives flour time to hydrate. This combination also made the dough less tacky and therefore easier to work with. The result was a loaf that baked up light yet chewy, without being tough.

There are three ways to knead dough– with your hands and some elbow grease, with a bread machine or (my favorite) with a stand mixer. For Christmas, my husband encouraged me to upgrade my Kitchen Aid Tilt Model Stand Mixer for Bowl-Lift Kitchen Aid Pro Stand Mixer. I have to say that this machine is amazing for bread baking! I love the “pig-tail” attachment that kneads dough better than I imagined was possible. WARNING: You will be seeing a lot more bread dough recipes in the coming weeks, because I’ve been baking a lot of them! The dough is ready for it’s first “proof” (rise).

At this point, you can add either pumpkin or sunflower seeds. I’ve tried it both ways– and our personal preference is sunflower seeds.

It takes about an hour for the dough to have doubled, so now it’s time to shape the loaves.

Gently press the dough into a large rectangle, cut it in half…

Then, rolled it and shaped it into a loaf — then sprayed a little oil and rolled the loaves into some oatmeal flakes, then set it into my bread pans.

The plastic-covered (or damp towel) covered pans are going to proof for about another hour.

Perfect! A light touch of my finger has the dough feeling tender and proofed enough to bake. Preheat the oven to 375F.

Perfect! 200F is just the right temperature to know that the bread has baked properly. Oh, the aroma!

Carefully remove the loaves from the pan, and set on a cooling rack. As tempting as it seems, I resist slicing into the bread before it has cooled. For one, slicing into hot bread can have the potential of “smooshing” the loaf.

I have owned a Presto Bread Slicing Guide and electric knife for decades. They aren’t made any longer (but I’ve seen them on eBay for around $30.00). I love mine, because I get even and perfect slices every time!

Just be sure to use a serrated knife. My favorite bread knife is this one. I like to slice both loaves, wrap them in plastic wrap and then foil. They freeze beautifully!

TASTING NOTES: Hands down, this bread is a clear winner! The more I make this dough, the more I appreciate the beautiful texture of working with it. I find that the small amount of kneading that I do (to incorporate the sunflower seeds) reminds me of the Play Dough of my youth.

BREAD BAKING SIMPLE TIPS: Here are a few bread baking tips that help me to be more successful. Don’t be discouraged if some of your attempts fail. Learn from them and you will get better and better. My best instructions have been from watching videos on America’s Test Kitchen (I have a paid all-access subscription). King Arthur Flour is one of my favorite recipe sources, plus their Baker’s Hotline is free to call–and the bakers are always super helpful and friendly.

• Read the recipe, thoroughly, and mentally “rehearse” the steps in your mind’s eye
• Make sure that your yeast isn’t out of date (I store mine in the refrigerator or the freezer)
• Mise en Place (“Mess in place”) will help with your success. I have an assortment of bowls so I can measure everything out, in advance.
• Yeast likes to be cozy and warm. The best temperature for dough to “proof” is between 70F-80F. I turn on my oven setting to WARM for three minutes, then shut it off. Or, you can proof dough in your microwave (turned off, of course).