Oatmeal Bread: Staff of Life

Baking bread is something primal everyone should really try once. I mean, not to be preachy, but there’s something really basic about this that I find really relaxing. Oh, and you make the best bread imaginable, baking your own, as well. Plus, it can be stored in the fridge for weeks, or frozen for months. And you can make oatmeal bread, which is what I consider to be one of the best twists on straight up bread out there.

The only thing is this recipe takes a bit of time. Not a lot of active working time, mind you, but plenty of rising downtime and the baking time make this something of a time commitment. But, bake this bread and you get 2 loaves of bread, which last me about 2 weeks, and taste amazing even as straight toast.

Plus, your house smells like bread, and you get to knead it. It’s really wonderful, or at least, I love it.

Recipe: Oatmeal Bread (2 Loaves)

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup warm water

1 tablespoon yeast (1 packet)

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons canola oil

2 cups oats (steel cut preferable)

4+ cups all purpose unbleached white flour

Instructions

Proof yeast in a large bowl with water – that is, let the water and yeast sit for 5 or so minutes, so that the yeast becomes active.

Next, add  the oil, salt, and sugar,  and mix them well. Then, add the oats, and mix them in. Next, add the flour, 1 cup at a time, mixing it in as you go. The final resulting dough should still be moist, but it should not adhere to your hands, so it will pull free any wet dough from kneading as you go.

Hand knead the dough for at least 10 minutes. After this, lightly oil the dough, place it in a covered bowl and let it rise in a warm, not hot place, for 1.5 to 2 hours, until the dough has doubled in volume.

While the dough is rising, butter 2 loaf pans well. After the dough has risen, punch it down and split it between the 2 buttered pans, and let it rise again until it has again doubled in volume. This will take anywhere between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours.

Once the loaves have risen, put them in a preheated oven at 375F for 35 to 40 minutes. Once they have baked, removed the loaves from their pans immediately, and let them cool fully before doing anything except eating them (this is fine when the bread is warm, in fact, it is encouraged).

Have fun!