Bread #3: Oatmeal Bread

 Good morning fellow bread-bakers.

 

As forecasted, we got our 10+ inches of snow.  Looks very pretty outside.  Perfect day to spend in the kitchen baking bread #3.  Today I’m making the oatmeal bread from my King Arthur Flour 200^th Anniversary cookbook.  The original recipe calls for 2 cups of stone ground whole wheat flour, but sadly, I don’t have any so I’m going to make it with 100% Montana Sapphire flour.  Have I mentioned that that is my favorite bread flour?  Well it is.  My mom always swore by it when we made strudel from scratch with my grandma.  It was the only flour that would allow us to pull the dough paper thin without making a bunch of holes.  It was also Donna Adam’s flour of choice for bread or anything that needed a high-protein flour.  Okay – I diverge….on to bread baking.

Here is the recipe.  Please bake oatmeal bread with me.

 

Tools you will need:
Large bowl
Measuring spoons
1 cup dry measuring cup
1 cup liquid measuring cup
Knife to cut the stick of butter in half
Wooden spoon for mixing
Bench scraper to scrape of the dough that sticks to your work surface
Plastic wrap or towel to cover the dough
2 loaf pans (mine are 5 ¼” x 9 ¼”, but recipe suggests 4 ½” x 8 ½”)

Here are all the ingredients (plus chicken soup cooking in that pot on the stove):

 
Oat Mixture:
1 ½ cups boiling water
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup honey
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 Tablespoon salt

 Dough:
1 Tablespoon (or 1 packet) active dry yeast
½ cup warm water
1 teaspoon honey
4 ½ - 5 cups Montana Sapphire flour
1 teaspoon olive oil for greasing the bowl
Olive oil spray such as PAM

Preparing the oats:  Pour the boiling water into a large mixing bowl and add the oats.  Stir in the honey, butter and salt.  Let cool to room temperature.

Proofing the yeast:   Dissolve and activate the yeast in the ½ cup warm water and teaspoon of honey.  When it’s frothy, add it to the oat mixture and stir it in.  Stir in about 3 ½ to 4 cups of flour.  Mix in the flour until it begins to hold together and pull away from the sides of the bowl.  Dump it onto a floured work surface.

Kneading and Rising:  Knead the dough until it feels together, adding only enough flour to keep it from sticking.  Give the dough a rest while you clean out your bowl.  Continue kneading the dough until it is elastic and springy and doesn’t stick to your work surface (this took me another 5 minutes or so).

Form it into a nice ball and place it in a greased bowl to rise, turning it to grease the top.  Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and put it someplace warm to rise until it’s about double in size (It took my dough almost 2 hours). 

Shaping:  When you can poke your finger in the dough without it springing back at you, punch it down, turn it out onto your work surface and divide it in two.  Shape into loaves and place in your bread pans that have been sprayed lightly with olive oil (honestly, I’m not sure if that’s necessary, but I wanted my loaves to come out easily).  Cover the pans and let the dough rise about 45 minutes.

Baking: Place the loaves in a cold oven, set temperature to 400 degrees for 15 minutes and then down to 350 degrees for another 25 minutes.

Below - the finished bread  (I cut it while it was still warm, so I smushed it a little...pretty sure it's baked enough time.

  

Reflections on this bake:

Oh this bread is delicious!  Slightly sweet from the honey, soft crust, moist and tender on the inside.  Can’t wait to toast it!  I think I need to improve my shaping skills, however.  The loaves are a little lop-sided.  Pretty sure one of my many cookbooks shows the proper way to create a loaf shape.  I will have to check that out before I shape my next loaf.  Also I think my loaf pans are a little too big for this amount of dough – I think the smaller loaf pans as suggested in the recipe would have made taller, prettier loaves.  Still, the bread tastes great and I would call this bake a success!