Have you ever had Dave’s Killer Bread before? It’s kind of my favorite, and today I’m making copycat Dave’s Killer Bread! I love the mix of whole wheat flour, sunflower seeds, quinoa, oats, cracked wheat, and flaxseed. This seedy bread is super delicious!
My first cookbook, Everday Muffin Party, is out! If you want to enjoy more healthy, refined sugar-free muffins, check it out HERE!
Copycat Dave’s Killer Bread
Seedy and a bit chewy… mmmm. The price though. Not so much.
I’ll randomly pick a loaf up here and there.
We go through a lot of bread in our house, so I like to look for something that’s more affordable but is still good for me.
Lately I’ve been purchasing the whole wheat bakery loaf from Chuck’s Produce (my favorite store around here), which has about 5 ingredients in it.
The same ingredients I’d use for homemade bread, except theirs seems to turn out better texture wise than my sandwich bread I’ve made.
Anyways, back to this Daves Killer Bread recipe…
Researching a Dave’s Killer Bread Recipe
I came across a couple copycat recipes, so I decided to try one of them out.
Was it a good copycat of DKB?
No… I didn’t think I was eating DKB, but it sure was delicious!
If you want a yummy whole grain sandwich bread with some extra special stuff in it (quinoa, flax seed, rolled oats, cracked wheat, sunflower seeds), then give this bread a go!
Also, make sure you have half a day available for it.
There is lots of rising and waiting.
If you’re going to be home anyways, or at least home every few hours to kneed and replace in a bowl, then I highly recommend this recipe.
If you give it a try, please do leave a comment and share your feedback!
What you need for this copycat Dave’s Killer Bread recipe
- warm water
- active dry yeast
- coconut oil, melted
- honey
- molasses
- sea salt
- flax seed
- cracked wheat
- extra thick rolled oats
- sunflower seeds
- quinoa
- whole wheat flour
How to make it
- In your standing mixer, add your warm water. Sprinkle the yeast on top and let sit for a few minutes. Add your coconut oil, honey, molasses, sea salt, and give it a quick mix.
- Add the rest of your dry ingredients, minus the flour and mix again, just to wet the ingredients.
- Slowly add the flour. Just until the dough pulls away from your bowl.
- Place the dough on a floured counter and knead it. Knead it until the dough stops absorbing the flour.
- Wash the dough bowl out. Dry it off and coat it with some oil. Place your dough in the bowl, cover with a warm damp towel and let rise until double in size.
- Once it has doubled in size, punch it down, knead it out again, placing it back in bowl. Let the dough rise and double in size, punch it down again, knead it out and cut the dough in half.
- Take out two loaf pans, and spray them with oil.
- Knead the two dough balls into an oval shape, and place them in pans. Cover the tops with a light oil ( I used olive oil). Cover with a damp warm towel and let rise until you have nice round rise on both.
- Heat your oven to 425 degrees F.
- Remove the towel, and place the loaves in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes.
- To make sure your bread is cooked thoroughly, flip your loaf out onto a hot pad and flick the bottom. If it sounds hollow, your bread is done!
Love homemade bread? You’ll love these recipes too!
Copycat Dave’s Killer Bread Recipe
Ingredients
- 2.25 cups warm water
- 2 tbsp active dry yeast
- 2 tbsp coconut oil melted
- 2 tbsp honey
- 2 tbsp molasses
- 1 tbsp sea salt
- ¼ cup flax seed
- ¼ cup cracked wheat
- ¼ cup extra thick rolled oats
- ¼ cup sunflower seeds
- ¼ cup quinoa
- 4 cups whole wheat flour (approx)
Instructions
- In your standing mixer, add your warm water. Sprinkle the yeast on top and let sit for a few minutes. Add your coconut oil, honey, molasses, sea salt, and give it a quick mix.
- Add the rest of your dry ingredients, minus the flour, and mix again, just to the wet the ingredients.
- Slowly add the flour. Just until the dough pulls away from your bowl.
- Place the dough on a floured counter and knead it. Knead it until the dough stops absorbing the flour.
- Wash the dough bowl out. Dry it off and coat it with some oil. Place your dough in the bowl, cover with a warm damp towel and let rise until double in size.
- Once it has doubled in size, punch it down, knead it out again, placing it back in the bowl. Let the dough rise and double in size, punch it down again, knead it out and cut the dough in half.
- Take out two loaf pans, and spray them with oil.
- Knead the two dough balls into an oval shape, and place them in pans. Cover the tops with a light oil ( I used olive oil). Cover with a damp warm towel and let rise until you have a nice round rise on both.
- Heat your oven to 425 degrees F.
- Remove the towel, place the loaves in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes.
- To make sure your bread is cooked thoroughly, flip your loaf out onto a hot pad and flick the bottom. If it sounds hollow, your bread is done!
Nutrition
If you try this copycat daves killer bread recipe, I’d love it if you left a star rating and comment below letting me know how it turned out!
XO
Heather
20 comments
Like Dave’s or not- it looks totally delicious!
I’m with you, Dave’s bread is amazing! But I totally would not have the patience of half a day for bread! I didn’t realize how many different things went into it!
Whole wheat bread does take longer to rise, but is worth it if you ever try!
Methinks the real trick here is to use a sponge method (like Dave does). Try a two-stage quick sponge method, mixing all the water, yeast, sugars (honey and molasses in this case), and 3 of the 4 cups of flour for the sponge (although I would probably use closer to 5 cups of flour with the amounts of the other ingredients shown – I always weigh my flour, though, so I am not certain of the volume – going by weight makes it much more reproducible). Mix these all together with a paddle for 5 minutes, then allow to rise for 70 minutes or so (covered, of course) before adding in the remaining ingredients and letting the dough hook knead it for 12-15 minutes, until you get a semi-decent windowpane. This will give your mixer a serious workout, and could overheat it if your mixer is the timid sort. Let it sit covered with a slightly damp flour sack towel for about 15 minutes, then knead it a bit more, then split it and roll it into loaves (roll the top of each in some additional seeds/rolled grains at this point) before continuing as in step 8 above. The final rise should take about 75 minutes – patience is key to get the loaves fully risen. You will find that you get a pronounced yeasty flavor from the sponge process as well as more rise to your loaves due to hydrolysis of the gluten strands. I’ve had more success with a lower temp bake, 360°F for about 40 minutes, the internal temperature will be 190°F when the bread is done. Try it with spelt flour, too, for a nuttier loaf.
Tried out this recipe yesterday using a variation of the sponge method that Greg mentioned above. This was my first time making wheat bread and first time grinding wheat berries into flour (and it’s been years since I last made a homemade loaf of bread). Guess what, it turned out fantastic! I have tried the bread maker before, but always had inferior results compared to doing everything by hand (I’ve never used an electric mixer, either). It’s definitely not DKB, but it turned out delicious. I was nervous that all my efforts would result in a wheat brick, but it turned out great. Thanks for posting the recipe!
Has anyone tried this recipe in a bread machine?
I’ve tried it in a bread machine and like all other recipes, it’s dense. What I do now is mix and knead the dough in the bread machine, then transfer to bread pans and bake in the oven.
This is a fine loaf, but to be honest, it is nothing like Dave’s. There isn’t enough chew because there is no vital wheat gluten in this recipe. Dave’s has it. 1/4 cup in each loaf to make it extra chewy. Cut the oats/nuts down to 1/2 cup with extra to coat the outside. Make sure to do the sponge technique. More sugar too, some loaves will have about 1/4 cup in them.
I tried this recipes and it was HORRIBLE. Not sure what happened but it was so so bad. Had to throw out both loaves.
Do you cook the quinoa first, what about rinsing the saponin off?
I made this bread and it came out great everyone loved it, Thanks for this recipe.
The above may make a nice loaf of bread. But if you want to make Dave’s Killer Bread Good Seed Bread this won’t work.
I have made the bread. It took some work to understand what the proportions of everything were and what techniques work for the home baker.
One key is to use a high extraction flour as the whole wheat flour. I suspect that is what they do. I used Central Milling’s Product 85.
The seed mix is equal parts of sunflower seeds, white sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, flax seeds and flaxseed meal.
A long sponge using a sourdough-type starter with equal weights of water and flour (100%) is needed. Use 1# of this and 3 1/2 cups of water and 24 oz of Product 85 flour. Add 30 gms. of gluten to this also. It will sit 2-3 hours, and then add 5 oz if the seed mix, 30 gms of oat bran, 4 tsp of salt, 2 tsp of instant yeast, 2 tablespoons of molasses, 6 tablespoons of sugar, two tablespoons of vinegar, ( I used rice vinegar), and 28 oz of white bread flour. Knead by whatever method you like, but let it sit after the first go, and then, over the next 40 minutes or so, do some stretch and folds. The dough will have well-developed gluten then, so form three loaves. Each will weigh about 2# 4oz,
Let them proof in a warm place for about 1 1/2 hours or until the usual criteria for readiness are met. Baked in a convection oven I put them in the cold oven with rapid heat to 400 degrees for 20 minutes, then 375 degrees for another 20 minutes, and then 5 minutes at 350 degrees. The inside temperature should read 200 degrees when then are done.
I have tasted both and this has the same flavor, crumb and texture of the commercial product.
Wow….that’s a LOT of work….all of a sudden 5 bucks a loaf doesn’t seem so bad. 😉
Addendum: In making the 1# of starter, use the product 85.
Jim–I read # as one pound. Is that correct? That’s a lot of starter!
I LOVE Daves Killer Bread and am sad he sold the company, but S___t happens. I still buy it, and yes the price makes me not buy it as often as I would like. After reading the recipe and all the remarks later I now realize why this bread costs so much and how labor intensive it is to make it! Those of you that do this need to tell those that receive it to give you hugs and kisses and presents galore!! 🙂
Dave’s bread was delicious, A lot of the time If I don’t like a particular ingredient I will substitute it with something else so instead of quinoa I added a little bit more oats and instead of cracked wheat I used bulgur wheat. I also used one less cup of whole wheat flour. It was really delicious. The next time I make, it I’ll add an extra tablespoon of black strap molasses. I loved bread as a child. I think it was the first thing I learned to say.
Is it possible to use entirely white all purpose for this recipe? I already started and didn’t have the whole wheat. Living during the pandemic means I cannot waste any ingredients ?
Hi Amber! I haven’t tried that so I can’t report back on it, but if you do please let us know how it goes!
I am in the same boat. Out of whole wheat flour and need to make an edible bread DKB. Not looking for perfection just ok bread with nuts and seeds. Please do share how it turned out with all purpose flour 🙂
Amber, I don’t know what the actual copycat should taste like, but I used white all purpose and my family likes the bread. I also used cooked quinoa. I used a tablespoon of sugar to help activate my yeast. Lastly, I also found that I needed to add at least another cup of flour otherwise it was too sticky. Everything else I did as per instructions.