We’re in Spring Break mode around here and it’s so nice to not have to dress young children and take them to preschool… but yesterday at about 4 pm I came to a screeching halt as my world and children spun around me at rapid speeds. As I tried to prepare our house for Bible study they fought, whined, and made giant messes. Needless to say, I’m thankful for a new day and new beginnings… and no school again!
I’ve been watching the blogosphere make bread for several months now and I was finally tempted to jump onto the bandwagon. I have a friend who has a mill and grinds her own wheat, bakes her own bread and the whole nine yards and when she graciously offered me fresh ground wheat flour I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make something really good out of it! Justin’s always been a fan of oatmeal bread so my friend and I went in search for a good oatmeal bread recipe. We found this one and after reading the reviews I made several changes to it and came up with Whole Wheat Honey Oatmeal Bread {recipe below}.
I wish you could smell it and I really wish you could taste it. It’s fabulous for sandwiches and toasted. And it’s so soft and moist! My friend also graciously loaned me her loaf pans… do you see that they are adjustable? They are fabulous in EVERY way. They’re only 4″ wide so the slices of bread aren’t enormous and I compensated for the narrow width by making the loaves a little longer {10″}. Well I’ve scoured the internet to no avail for expandable loaf pans. She found them in Germany. If anyone over the pond has access to these let me know… or if you know how to search “expandable loaf pan” in German that might help too!
I was so thankful to have 2 helpers who couldn’t resist getting in on the action.
And last but not least, this picture has a story. Sometimes, ok, a lot of times I wear really absurd things. Justin will occasionally threaten to take a picture of me and then tell me he’s going to hijack the blog and post pictures of me. I’ll take care of that for him… here is what I wore all day Sunday after church.
I, personally, see nothing wrong with ivory knee socks and black capri yoga pants, especially when you’re baking bread.
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As for the bread, the recipe online didn’t call for near enough flour {almost 2 cups short}, nor did it call for whole wheat flour. It also called for adding the oatmeal to the top after it had baked… so here’s my revised PDF version of Whole Wheat Honey Oatmeal Bread.
Or if you’d rather copy & paste…
Whole Wheat Honey Oatmeal Bread
yields 2 loaves
Ingredients:
2 cups boiling water
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup honey
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons salt
1 (.24 oz) package of active dry yeast
½ cup warm water (110 degrees F)
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
3 ½ to 4 cups bread flour
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons honey
handful of rolled oats
- In large mixing bowl (stand mixer bowl if you have one), combine boiling water to oats, honey, butter and salt. Let stand 1 hour.
- In small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
- Pour the yeast mixture into the oats mixture. Combine wheat flour and bread flour in separate bowl. Add 2 cups of flour mixture to oats mixture and combine well. Continue adding flour mixture to mixing bowl by ½ cup increments until dough pulls together. This will happen when between 5 ½ & 6 cups of flour has been added. You may not need the last ½ cup of flour.
- When the dough has pulled together, turn it onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Or add your bread hook to your mixer and knead for a few minutes.
- Lightly oil a large bowl, place dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hr. (I preheat the oven for about 5 minutes then turn it off, make sure it’s warm but not hot and put the bowl in there to rise, this seemed to work best because for this recipe is there is much more flour than yeast).
- Deflate the dough and turn it onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into two equal pieces and form into loaves. Place in 9 x 5 greased loaf pans and cover with damp cloth & let rise again until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. (I return the pans to the oven for this step too.)
- Preheat oven to 375. While oven is preheating mix milk and honey together in mug and microwave for about 20 seconds. Brush warm milk mixture over loaves and generously sprinkle with rolled oats.
- Bake loaves at 375 for 25-30 minutes or until top is golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Let cool before removing from pans.
