Recipe: Oatmeal Bread

 As my three regular readers know, I have two breads that I make almost weekly: Wheat Bread and Amish White Bread, both from Tammy's Recipes. These have been our "go-to" staples for a couple of years now, since we discovered that most store-bought bread has both added soy products (to which Nephew is allergic) and high-fructose corn syrup (which we would just prefer to avoid). The wheat bread is awesome for almost any purpose, and is my stand-by for peanut butter toast.  Mr. Mamie occasionally likes a white bread sandwich, and I won't eat a grilled cheese on anything else (other than that, we mostly try to stick to the whole grain breads).  I do modify Tammy's recipe for wheat bread by subbing in some wheat germ and vital wheat gluten flour, and by adding flax seed meal. Sometime I will get around to posting the exact measurements for those changes. In the meantime, if you want a nice, smooth, eatable-every-day wheat bread, click above to get Tammy's recipe.

Last week I wanted to make something slightly different. I started with an Oatmeal Bread recipe that came from the Hillbilly Housewife site, then modified the ingredients and the method slightly.  The results were yummy - a little denser and heavier than my usual wheat bread, but definitely up to the task for ferrying butter and boysenberry jam (photo above!) to my mouth!

For most of my yeasted loaf breads, I start the process in the bread machine and then bake in the oven - that is how I made this Oatmeal Bread, and that's how I wrote the directions.

Oatmeal Bread 

• 1-1/2 cups warm water
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1-1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup wheat germ (I use Bob's Red Mill)
• 1/4 cup vital wheat gluten flour (I use Bob's Red Mill)
• 2 tablespoons flax seed meal (I use Bob's Red Mill)
• 2 tablespoons instant dry milk powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup dry oatmeal (I like either Coach's Oats or Bob's Red Mill Organic, but I'm certainly not above Quaker or even The Walmartz house brand!)
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast (which is incredibly cheap if bought in bulk at Costco, and incredibly expensive if bought in little packets or small jars at the grocery store!)

1. Add the ingredients in the order listed into the bucket of the bread machine.
2. Run the machine on the "dough" cycle. On my machine this lasts for 90 minutes.
3. After the dough cycle is complete, transfer the dough to a greased bread pan. Turn the dough a couple of times so that the whole surface is greased.
4. Set the bread pan in a warmish place to rise and cover with a loose tea towel. Let rise until the dough is at or just above the rim of the bread pan.
5. Put the bread pan in the oven AND THEN turn the oven on to 350. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.
6. After 20 minutes, the top of the bread should be nicely browned. Loosely cover the loaf with a sheet of aluminum foil, then continue baking for another 10 - 15 minutes.
7. Remove bread pan from oven and brush the top with about a tablespoon of melted butter, if desired. Let bread pan cool on wire rack for 5 minutes.
8. After 5 minutes, remove bread from pan and place loaf on wire rack. Cover loaf loosely with a tea towel until completely cooled (of course, you can cut a slice or two or five to eat warm!).

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)