I’ve been experimenting in the kitchen again! While I love dark breads, oatmeal breads, multi-grain breads… well, almost anything as long as it’s bread, my husband is a different story. He likes white bread. Although I have gotten him to try (and occasionally eat by his own choice) oatmeal bread, he’s never cared for wheat bread, especially the “stone-ground” kind, which is my favorite. With his tastes in mind, I wanted to come up with a bread recipe with at least two grains in it that he would eat and like. After much experimentation with amounts, etc. I have come up with the following recipe. If you have a picky bread eater in your family, I dare you to make some to see what they think. They just might make a switch, it really is that good.
This bread comes out fairly dark, not too sweet and the texture is beautiful. Just don’t ask how many tries it took me to get it this way, ha ha. While cutting with a serrated bread knife, it’ll squish right inwards and then pop back out when you let go of it, it’s soooo soft! Please excuse my funny shaped loaves, I was in such a hurry that day.
Oatmeal, Whole Wheat & Molasses Bread Recipe
Yield: Makes 1 large or 2 average sized loaves
Note: As with my other recipe, I use a bread machine to knead and do the first rise, but I don’t use it to bake the bread. You can do whichever is easier for you.
- 1 1/3 cups boiling Water
- 1 cup Old-Fashioned Oats
- 1 Tbsp Olive Oil (vegetable oil is fine, too)
- 1/2 cup Molasses
- 1 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
- 1 1/2 cups White Flour
- 2 Tbsp Wheat Gluten (not needed, but I find it produces better quality breads)
- 1/4 tsp Rapid-Rise Yeast
- Place oats in bread machine and add the boiling water. Stir with wooden spoon to be sure all oats are wet. Set timer for 30 minutes to give it time to soak, as well as cool down enough for the yeast.
- When 30 minutes is up, add your egg and molasses. I stir mine with a wooden spoon, although I’m sure the bread machine would probably do it just fine.
- Add olive oil and salt. Stir with wooden spoon, just to mix in.
- Layer your whole wheat and white flours in (it doesn’t matter which one goes in first). I add the wheat gluten in between the layers of flour in the pan.
- Add yeast last, after making an indentation for it in the flour.
Set your bread machine to “dough” cycle if you’re going to bake it as I do in my own oven, or to whatever setting you would use for whole wheat if you’re going to let the machine do the baking. If using dough cycle, leave until cycle is done and then punch down dough and put into greased loaf pan(s) to let rise until doubled in size. Bake at 400 degrees until medium-brown crust, or desired color.
If you make this, I’d love to hear any comments, questions, critiques, etc. I hope you have the same results I have with it, especially if you have a picky eater in your family! I’ll be anxious to hear back from my readers with their results. Thank you for coming to read on my blog, I value your visits and comments!