Please join MOTHER EARTH NEWS as we delve into homemade breadmaking during our Beautiful Bread Week from Oct. 18-24, 2026.
For decades, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been sharing resources on every facet of breadmaking, from ancient grains and sourdough starters to wild yeast and holiday recipes. Find our most loved recipes and tips in these articles and look out for more content such as a podcast on baking with ancient grains with Jon Thomas of EarthTouch coming Oct. 22.
Don’t let intimidation stand between you and fresh-from-the-oven, homemade bread. Nutritious, home-baked loaves don’t have to be dense and bland — nor should homemade bread cost you hours of labor. From easy banana bread and skillet cornbread to a basic sandwich loaf and flavorful sourdough made from your own starter culture, this Homemade Bread-Baking Guide has everything a beginner or seasoned bread baker needs to churn out tasty whole-grain creations. Pull out your grain mill, preheat your oven, and fearlessly dive into the world of homemade bread.
Baking Homemade Sourdough Bread • Baking No-Knead Bread • Baking White Bread
Making Flatbreads • How to Make Cornbread • Sweet Bread Recipes
Whole-Grain Baking
Homemade Whole-Grain Bread Recipe
Nutritious bread doesn’t have to be dense and bland. Revolutionize your whole grain baking using this Homemade Whole-Grain Bread recipe based on the methods of baking expert Peter Reinhart. You’ll make homemade whole-grain bread with a surprisingly light texture and rich flavor.
Sugar-free bread needn’t be bland or lacking in flavor. You can bake delicious loaves without using refined commercial sweeteners.
Baking Bread in an Old Wood-Burning Cookstove
Here’s how B. Touchstone Hardaway bakes whole wheat bread using an old cookstove.
Enjoy light and wholesome whole-wheat bread with this easy recipe.
St. Patrick’s Day Whole-Meal Irish Bread
This recipe hearkens back to a time when Irish soda bread was a more rustic, country affair — not all gussied up with mostly white flour.
Using coffee cans as the mold, bake this simple, homemade ‘Digger Bread.’
Healthy, Enriched Bread Recipe
A reader shares his recipe, perfected over a period of five years, for nutritionally enriched bread.
How to Make Sprouted-Grain Bread: The Essene Whole-Grain Bread Recipe
Here’s how to sprout whole-grain berries for use as an ingredient in sprouted-grain bread.
Amp Up Your Bread With Sprouted Grains and Multigrains
Make homemade bread even more nutritious and tasty by adding a variety of whole and sprouted grains, including nutrient-dense sprouted wheat. Includes recipes for Multigrain Mixture no.1, Multigrain Mixture no.2, and a Sample schedule for sprouting wheat berries.
In the Old World, multigrain, whole-grain breads like our farmer’s bread were a dietary mainstay for thousands of years.
Sandwich Heaven. Toast Nirvana. If you want a nice, square loaf with a uniform crust all the way around, follow this step-by-step tutorial for baking a perfectly sized sandwich bread.
The author had years of experience baking multigrain bread but couldn’t get it to rise high until she observed this method.
Acclaimed by The New York Times as the “Do-good Loaf,” this bread has attracted a wide following among bakers who praise the recipe for its delicious taste and extraordinary nutritional qualities.
Honey and a bit of rye flour add distinctive flavor accents to honey wheat bread.
Oatmeal Bread Made With Sorghum
This recipe calls for old-fashioned oats and sorghum in place of the molasses. This is also a great recipe to add some flax seed meal to and being a no-knead bread recipe, it’s great if you are running tight on time!
Inspired by her grandmother’s stories about cooking in a clay oven, a Calgary woman came up with this method of baking flower pot bread.
Baking Homemade Sourdough Bread
Use this recipe to create your own rustic sourdough bread, using sourdough “leaven” or sourdough starter, and you’ll have your own artisanal sourdough boule.
Creating Homemade Sourdough Bread From a Starter Mix
Lynn Keiley discusses the difference in quality you find when baking homemade sourdough bread from a starter mix.
Seeded Sourdough Bread Recipe Loaded with Omega-3s
Occasionally, I feel a little guilty and decide that if we are going to eat so much bread, it should be good for us. So, I throw in a bit more whole-grain flour, fruit and nuts, and add seeds that are a good source of omega-3 fatty acids.
Country Lore: Make Sourdough Bread Like a Pro
We make sourdough bread with a rye starter and whole-grain rye flour — and sometimes let it rise in a warm sauna!
Best Ever Sourdough Oatmeal Bread Recipe
Oatmeal bread recipes are typically written for straight dough (those that use dried yeast) or a combination of both sourdough starter and dried yeast. Out of frustration, I created my own recipe for oatmeal bread leavened only with a tangy sourdoughs starter.
Spelt is an ancient grain that contains gluten, with some studies indicating “that spelt gluten breaks down easily during fermentation, making it more digestible than modern varieties of wheat.” This spelt recipe is sure to delight and go down just right.
Sourdough Recipes: Create Delicious Sourdough Breads, Muffins and Hotcakes
Learn how to create a sourdough starter to bake sourdough breads, muffins and hotcakes using these easy-to-follow recipes. Includes recipes for Sourdough Starter Recipe, Sourdough White Bread Recipe, Sourdough French Bread, Sourdough Muffin Recipe, Cinnamon Coffee Bread Recipe, Sourdough Cake Recipe and Sourdough Hotcakes Recipe.
Home-Baked Bread From Potato Water Starter
Brewing a potato water starter is easy, and once you have it, you can use it again and again to make your own variety of home-baked bread.
Baking No-Knead Bread
No-Knead Healthy Bread Recipes
These healthy bread recipes are full of nutritious whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Mix them up yourself and save big bucks on groceries. Includes recipes for Whole Grain Artisan Loaf, 10-Grain Bread Recipe, Andama Corn Bread Recipe, Cinnamon Raisin Whole Wheat Bagels Recipe and Easy No-Knead Crusty Bread Recipe.
Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread
Discover this ridiculously easy — and cheap! — technique that revolutionizes home baking. Includes recipes for Boule, Pizza Dough, 100 Percent Whole-Wheat Sandwich Bread, Sticky Pecan caramel Rolls, Naan, onion and Herb Rolls.
You can bake rustic artisan loaves at home.
The Master Recipe: Whole-Grain Artisan Bread
Mix up a large batch of up our whole grain artisan bread recipe, store it in the refrigerator, and when you need to bake a fresh loaf you’ll have the dough all ready to go.
For seasoned and aspiring bakers, here’s a multigrain bread recipe that uses a popular cereal to deliver a mix of flavors and the benefits of fiber, vitamins, and phytochemicals.
Delicious and Easy Homemade Bread
Say goodbye to the intimidation factor. Our tips for easy homemade bread will inspire beautiful loaves and a whole new outlook on baking.
No-Knead Sourdough Bread Recipe
Use this no-knead sourdough bread recipe to create your own San Francisco sourdough bread. Bake it in a cast-iron Dutch oven.
Cinnamon-Raisin Whole-Wheat Bagels Recipe
Hand-shape, boil and bake your own fantastic bagels with the classic chew and crispy crust.
Recipes for No-Knead and Other Tasty Breads
The process of baking bread is like an homage to our past: One of our oldest foods is also one of the most satisfying to create from scratch. Includes recipes for Fast White Bread, For Bread Machines: Hearty Winter Bread, Onion Beer Bread, No Knead Bread
If you want homemade bread but don’t want to knead dough, batter bread is the answer.
Baking White Bread
It’s nothing like the bland, mushy supermarket stuff. Follow our white bread recipe and you’ll end up with a loaf that’s chewy and flavorful.
Our sandwich bread recipe gives you what you’d want from this type of bread: a loaf that doesn’t call attention to itself and capably performs a supporting role.
Basic white bread need not be bland or lacking in substance.
Classic Homemade Bread Recipes You’ll Love
Here are three easy-to-follow recipes for the most delectable homemade breads you’re likely to taste! Includes recipes for Basic Bread, Honey Wheat Bread, Onion Bread for the Onion Lover.
Making Flatbread
The Ask MOTHER column shares this simple skillet bread recipe, a few ingredients and a quick kneading produce a bread in 15 minutes that is highly nutritious, delicious and a cinch to prepare.
This simple bread recipe using whole wheat flour, soy flour, and brewer’s yeast is nutritious, tasty, inexpensive, and easy to prepare.
How to Make Chapatis: Thin, Nutty, and Crispy Breads
Chapatis, traditional Indian flatbreads, have a cracker and nut-like flavor and can be made by even the most inexperienced bakers. Check out step-by-step instructions for a chapati bread recipe and variations to enhance flavor.
How to Make Cornbread
This corn bread recipe is based on a classic combination of cornmeal and molasses, and is perfect at Thanksgiving or served with a hearty stew.
Sweet, savory corn bread is a classic food that makes a great companion to hearty soups and stews.
The author shares the secrets of making corn bread, including a history of its preparation, baking tips, and recipes for traditional and new varieties of corn bread and corn muffins. Includes recipes for Traditional Corn Bread Recipe, Pumpkin Corn Muffins, Cranberry Corn Muffins, Almond Corn Muffins, Mexican Corn Bread.
Sweet Bread Recipes
Quick breads are a wonderful way to start for the novice baker due to their fast and satisfying results. This one will also use up those aging bananas lying on your counter.
Wholesome Holiday Bread Recipes
Intent on celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays while still eating healthy, the author devised a few natural and wholesome holiday bread recipes. Includes recipes for Pumpkin Bread, Banana Nut Bread, Cranberry Nut Bread.
With quick breads, you can have fresh-baked goodies without sacrificing the whole day.
Holiday Breads: How to Make Potica
Potica is a light and delicate Slovakian holiday bread stuffed with a brown sugar and nut filling.
Departing a little from the usual way of things, this dill bread recipe is on the sweeter side.
Saffron Christmas Bread Recipes
My favorite recipe this year was Lussekatteer (Swedish saffron buns). On December 13, most Scandinavian households serve these sweet buns infused with saffron in honor of St. Lucy’s feast day. I made them for my family and was very pleased with the results. Contains recipes for Lussekatter from Classic Scandinavian Cooking and Heather’s Golden Saffron Quick Bread.
We don’t know if you’ll think double banana bread is twice as good as regular banana bread, but if you do we won’t be surprised.
Italian Easter Dove Bread: La Colombia di Pascua
This Italian Easter bread will actually look like a bird or dove, with wings, a tail, and beak. Children will love the idea of bread that looks like a bird.
How to Make Steamed Bread on Top of Your Stove
Bake moist, delicious, sweet dessert breads right on top of your stove. Includes recipes for Blueberry Gingerbread, Steamed Date and Honey Bread, Boston Brown Bread, Year-Round Fruitcake, Carob Tea Bread, Main Dish Loaf.
