Muesli Bread Recipe: Dried Fruit, Nuts, and Whole Grains

Try this Mexican Day of the Dead Bread next! It's delicious!

Jump to:

• ❤️ Why you'll love this recipe
• Muesli Bread Recipe Ingredients
• 🔪 Instructions
• 🥫 Storage
• Absolutely My Favorite Bread Recipe
• 💭 Tips for success
• 📚 Related recipes
• 🥄 Equipment
• 📞 The last word
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

❤️ Why you'll love this recipe

Every bite of this delectable muesli bread recipe is loaded with sweet dried fruit, crunchy nuts, and chewy whole grains. You can use whatever mixture you like - I chose a combination of raisins, apricots, and sunflower seeds this time.

Muesli Bread Recipe Ingredients

We always called it harvest bread -- it's obsessively yummy as toast and makes incredible chicken salad sandwiches. If you'd like a wholesome bread like this but without the fruit try my Oatmeal Walnut bread.

You can change the dried fruit and nuts to fit your own tastes.

• Active dry yeast is what makes the bread rise and it's my go to yeast. If you prefer to use rapid rise yeast you can.
• Honey is the sweetener of choice here. Different types of honey will change the flavor slightly. Brown sugar or granulated sugar may be substituted.
• Bread flour has a lot of protein and it helps the structure of the bread, allowing it to rise properly.
• Vital wheat gluten adds more protein to the bread to help offset the weigh of the dried fruit and nuts.
• Whole wheat flour is used to add a rustic touch but you could use all bread flour if you like.
• Rolled oats are the old fashioned oats - you can't substitute quick oats or instant oatmeal.
• Sunflower seeds are my favorite for this hearty loaf. You can use walnuts, pecans, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, or any kind of combination you like.
• Raisins and dried apricots are the fruit I prefer in this recipe because of the moisture content and flavors. Any kind of dried fruit will work as far as I know.
• Butter is added for richness and flavor. Use salted or unsalted - whichever you prefer.
• Kosher salt is my salt of choice. If you use table salt then you should cut the measurement by ¼.
• Egg is used to brush the top of the loaf before baking. You don't have to use it if you don't want to.

🔪 Instructions

1. Place warm water in a large mixing bowl.
2. Sprinkle yeast and then honey over the top and stir to dissolve.
3. Gradually mix in 2 cups bread flour, the gluten, and 1 cup whole wheat flour ( or 1 cup of your mixed flours).
4. Stir.
5. Cover yeast mixture with tea towel or plastic wrap and let stand 30 minutes in a warm place.
6. Stir shelled sunflower seeds, fruit, butter, and salt into yeast mixture.
7. Gradually stir in enough remaining whole wheat flour to form soft dough.
8. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth and elastic, adding more whole wheat flour if dough is sticky, about 10-15 minutes by hand or 6 minutes by mixer.
9. Grease clean large bowl.
10. Place dough in bowl, turning to coat completely. Cover with tea towel.
11. Let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled and dough does not spring back when 2 fingers are pressed into side, 2 hours or so.
12. Punch dough down. Let rest 10 minutes.
13. Grease pans. Shape dough into desired shapes and place in pans on on baking sheets.
14. Cover with tea towel and let loaf rise in warm draft-free area until almost doubled in volume, about 45 minutes.
15. Brush top of loaf with egg and sprinkle rolled oats over the top.
16. Bake at 375F until golden brown, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

🥫 Storage

Store baked bread at room temperature in an airtight container or tightly wrapped in plastic wrap for about 2 days at most.

Wrap in plastic wrap, then aluminum foil, and freeze for longer storage - up to 3 months.

Absolutely My Favorite Bread Recipe

Every time I post a bread recipe I seem to say, this is absolutely my favorite bread! and honestly it's not a lie.

My favorite loaf of bread is always the one I've just made! This harvest bread is special to me because it's the first loaf of yeast bread I'd tried with whole grains mixed in.

This bread is delicious but if you're looking for a good, plain sandwich bread then try the buttermilk bread. It's the most popular recipe on the blog!

💭 Tips for success

• You can use instant yeast if you want. Just add it right in with the flour.
• Muesli bread makes great dinner rolls, too. 
• Use these tips to help the bread rise.
• Bread recipes with fruit and nuts require a longer baking time than you may be used to because of the amount of dried fruit. The fruit releases moisture and the bread will be soggy if not cooked long enough. The benefit to that is that it will stay fresher longer, too.
• This multi-grain fruit and nut bread recipe is good made into an oblong loaf shape and sliced for sandwiches (try a chicken salad, or peanut butter) or made in a cloche or oval.
• It makes great French toast, too!
• Any grain combination of flour that you like is fine -- just maintain the total number of cups.
• Use at least half white bread flour or use at least ½ cup of vital wheat gluten to give the dough elasticity. I used white flour, whole wheat and (dry) oatmeal in this one..but have used soy, rye, bran, cracked wheat and other combinations in the past.
• Use a mixture of whatever kind of dried fruit you like but make sure that the pieces are similar in size. Dice dates and figs, for example, so that they are about the same size as the raisins in this recipe. Doing so will help to ensure even distribution of the fruit and a better texture overall.
• You may want to check out these tips for working with yeast breads.
• Muesli bread loaf will keep, tightly wrapped, for 2 days or so at room temperature - or freeze for longer storage.
• This bread freezes well for up to three months.

📚 Related recipes

I love this but it's only one of many bread recipes here on Restless Chipotle!

• 30 Minute Baguette is really 30 minutes from the time you add flour to the mixer to the time you take it out of the oven. It makes awesome garlic bread!
• Perfect white bread is a simple, old fashioned loaf that your grandmother would be familiar with.
• Viennese Christmas bread is a whole wheat fruit and nut bread that's flavored with cardamom, glazed, and topped with pecans. It's so unique and delicious for Christmas brunch!
• Italian bread bowls are perfect for busy nights. Just ladle your soup or stew into the bread bowl and ... no dishes to wash!

🥄 Equipment

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Vital Wheat Gluten adds springiness to the muesli bread dough and helps it rise higher and lighter. I like Bob's Red Mill and like to buy yeast in huge packages because it's SO inexpensive that way. I pretty much only use Red Star. 

📞 The last word

I'd made raisin bread and cinnamon bread before but never anything with whole grains. It was the 1970s and let me tell you, whole grains were the ingredient of the hour. In the days before the AMA decided that fat was deadly to all people and eating an egg was suicidal wholesome was anything that contained whole grains.

You could make a chocolate chip cookie with whole grains and it would be touted as old fashioned and wholesome.

We were the last of the Baby Boomers. We watched our parents sipping cocktails in their polyester designer clothing.

We'd been fed vegetables from a can, TV dinners, and squishy white bread. Rebellion against all of the trappings of the mid-century middle class meant that we shunned commercialism in everything.

Homesteading became a thing. Tiger Beat and 17 Magazine were tossed aside in favor of Mother Earth News. We hand sewed cotton patchwork maxi skirts, learned to knit, and made bread by the bucketful. The Little House on the Prairie series of books was our Bible.

The 1960s were actually the last decade of innocently eating food without thinking about fat, cholesterol, carbs, or sugars, in my opinion. If you were a few pounds overweight you went to Weight Watchers for a few months and got back in shape. Easy -peasy.

Thanks AMA... we have a much healthier attitude about food and our bodies now! (if you don't recognize it THAT was sarcasm.)

Be careful, this muesli bread is slightly addictive. If you're looking for a great breakfast bread try this old fashioned homemade honey bun recipe. Be sure to watch the video if you need help with kneading!

If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need. Don't forget that you can click on "add to collection" to save it to your own, private recipe box!

If you love this recipe please give it a 5 star rating. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📖 Recipe

First published October 2016. Last updated September 14, 2021 for editorial fixes.