Wholewheat Oatmeal Bread

Blogging Marathon #25: Week 1/ Day 2
Theme: Baking with Whole Grains
Dish: Wholewheat Oatmeal Bread
Wholewheat Oatmeal bread has been on my to-make list for a while now. For some reason the combination of wholewheat and oats sounded delicious. So when I saw the theme "Baking with Whole Grains", I knew right away that I have to give this combo a try.

I found this amazing bread recipe on King Arthur Flour site (my go-to site for all things baking). When I saw that the recipe had 117 reviews and most of them with 5 stars, I knew that thiswais going to be a fantastic recipe. I wasn't wrong, this is probably the BEST bread I've ever baked in my short baking career. For all newbie bakers, this should be the first bread to try, so you can build your bread baking confidence.

Bread is slightly sweet with a great texture and is absolutely delicious as is and tastes even better with a dab of butter and jelly. Recipe calls for 1½cups of whole wheat flour, but I increased it to 3 cups and added 3tsp  vital wheat gluten to get a softer bread.

 

Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour site:

Ingredients:
Boiling water - 2cups
Rolled Oats - 1cup
Brown Sugar - ½cup
Honey - 1tbsp
Butter - ¼cup (half a stick)
Salt - 1tbsp
Ground Cinnamon - 1tsp
Instant Yeast - 1tbsp
Wholewheat Flour - 3cups
All purpose flour - 2cups
Vital wheat gluten - 3tsp

Method:

• In a bowl of the stand mixer, combine water, oats, sugar, honey, butter, salt and cinnamon. Let cool to lukewarm.
• Add yeast and the flours to the mixture and knead with the dough hook until a smooth, pliable dough forms, about 5-7 minutes. Spray the top of the dough with cooking spray, cover with a plastic wrap and set aside to rise for 1 hour.
• Divide the dough in half and shape each half into a loaf. Place the loaves in two 8.5"x4.5" loaf pans (I used my 9"x5" loaf pans, which worked fine), cover loosely with lightly greased plastic wrap and set aside to rise for 1 hour. Dough should crown 1" over the rim of the pan; I had to let my loaves rise for 2.5 hours to get to this stage because it was VERY cold when I made the bread. So make sure that the dough rises sufficiently before baking the bread.
• Preheat the oven to 360°F and bake the loaves for 33 minutes until the tops are golden brown and the   internal temperature is 190°F. If your oven cannot be set to 360°F, then set it at 350°F and bake for 35-40 minutes.
• Let the bread cool for 10 minutes in the pan before removing onto a wire rack. Cool completely before slicing. 

As I said this is the best bread I have ever baked, it's soft, sweet and just so delicious. It pairs well with butter, jelly and even savory cream cheese spread.

Lets check out what my fellow marathoners have cooked today for BM# 25.