Whole Wheat Walnut Bread

with whipped honey & thyme butter.

I originally developed this whole wheat walnut bread recipe last fall when I was working in the test kitchen at Food52, but I love the recipe so much and keep coming back to it, so I thought I’d share it here, too. It’s a soft, squishy bread with swirls of walnuts and sprinkled with oats. And it’s perfect for soaking up soup or toasting and eating for breakfast. I also made this for Thanksgiving last year to serve with dinner and to have for leftover sandwiches.

As much as I love sourdough, what I love about this bread is that it uses instant dry yeast for a really quick rise, which makes it easy and quick(er) to make. While the recipe says to chop walnuts and roll them into the dough, you can definitely leave them out if you’re not feeling it.

Original photo from Food52, taken by Ty Mecham.

While it’s a hard recipe to mess up, here are some tips to get the best result:

• Make sure to knead the dough long enough. This is essential to get a really soft and feathery loaf of bread. As the dough kneads, more gluten strands develop, and if not enough are present, the bread will be drier and crumblier. An easy way to know is to do the stretch test. Just pull a piece of dough between your hands into a really thin sheet; if it breaks easily, keep kneading; if it doesn’t tear, it’s good to go.

• If I could go back and fix this in the written recipe, I would, but instead of brushing the loaf with milk before topping it with oats, brush it with egg wash instead of milk. While the milk still gives it a nice finish, it doesn’t stick to the oats as well.

• The recipe yields two loaves, which is great if you’re making this for Thanksgiving or a big dinner party, but you can easily just half the recipe and make one.

• If you have one, use the kitchen thermometer to check for doneness. I prefer to pull it out at 190ºF as it continues to bake once out, but as long as you pull it before 200/210ºF you should be good.

If you have any questions or want to share a photo, I’d love to hear from you in the chat below!