Honey Oats Bread

Veena had suggested this honey oats bread for this month’s blogging marathon theme, tame the yeast. Though I am not part of this month’s blogging marathon, I wanted to bake the bread. Veena had made the recipe from Bakingdom and I followed that recipe. Veena had pretty much followed that recipe to T and so did I.

I made ⅓ of the recipe in a mini loaf pan. The dough can be kneaded in a stand mixer or in a food processor or by hand, as I did. If kneading by hand, remove your finger rings as the dough is very sticky and cleaning the ring becomes tedious. 🙂 The dough is kneaded, let to double in size and then shaped into a loaf. The loaf is again let to rise until it doubles in size, brushed with honey, sprinkled with oats and then baked until dark golden brown.

This makes nice bread for breakfast or even a snack anytime of the day. I pretty much snacked on that small loaf all day. 🙂

Source: Veena who made it from here
Total Time: 55 – 70 minutes
Preparation: 15 – 20 minutes
Bake Time: 40- 50 minutes
Yields: 1 mini Loaf

Ingredients:

• 1 cup All Purpose Flour
• ¼ cup Oats (I used old fashioned and instant oatmeal can also be used)
• ⅓ hot Milk (microwave for 30-45 seconds)
• 4 tsp. Luke Warm Water
• ¾ tsp. Instant Yeast (I used Active Dry Yeast)
• ⅓ tsp. Sugar
• 1 ½ tbsp. Honey
• 2 tsp. Butter
• ½ tsp. Salt
• ½ - ¾ tbsp. Honey
• ½ - ¾ tbsp. Oats

Preparation:

• In bowl mix together flour, oats yeast and salt. If using active dry yeast do not add it to flour mixture.
• If using active yeast, add sugar and active yeast to luke warm water and keep it aside to forth.
• In a small bowl warm milk so that it is hot enough to melt the butter. I put it in microwave for 45 seconds. Add butter to milk and stir until it melts. Then add honey and keep it aside. If using instant yeast then you can add sugar and water to milk mixture at this point.
• If using active yeast, add yeast water mixture to flour and mix.
• Add milk mixture and continue to mix to form dough. The dough is going to be very sticky. If kneading the dough by hand, flour your hands and also work surface generously with flour. Knead it for 12 – 15 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. If the dough is sticky even after 5 minutes of kneading, add about 1 tbsp. of flour at a time. If the dough is very dry, add 1 tsp. of water at a time to soften it. If using a stand mixer, mix it for 10 minutes using the dough attachments. Or can knead the dough in a food processor as Veena did. She used the food processor until the processor refused to run anymore and then kneaded the dough with hands.
• Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and let it rise for about 1 hour until it doubles in size.
• Line a mini loaf pan with parchment or wax paper.
• Once dough rises, place it on dry surface and lightly flour the surface if the dough is very sticky. Flatten the dough with fingers into a 5 x 6 or 7” rectangle. Tightly roll the dough into a loaf, tucking the ends. Place the rolled loaf in a mini loaf pan, cover with clean dry towel and let it rise again until doubles in size, about 1 hour.
• Preheat the oven to 350F. Place an empty loaf pan at the bottom rack while the oven preheats. Also bring 2 cups of water to a boil on stove top.
• When the loaf doubles in size, lightly warm honey, about 10-15 seconds in microwave and brush it on top of the loaf. I drizzled the honey on top of the bread using a spoon and spread it all over with back of the spoon. Sprinkle oats on top of the loaf.
• Place the loaf pan on the middle rack and pour boil water in the empty loaf pan that is on the bottom rack. Bake for 40-50 minutes until bread is deep golden brown and internal temperature is 190 degrees. I baked for 40 minutes, the internal temperature was 190 degrees and the bread tasted good. However, I wondered if it might have tasted even better had I baked for another 3-5 minutes until the bread was even darker in color.
• Transfer to wire rack and cool completely before serving. I sliced the bread before it was completely cooled as I had to take pictures.
• Serve the bread with jam, butter or honey.

Note:

• I made ⅓ of the recipe in a mini loaf pan. For regular 9x5” loaf pan, use 3 times the recipe listed above. Also bake for 40-50 minutes until the bread is dark golden brown.
• I made this bread early last month in November. It was not very cold and the dough doubled in size with in an hour. In winters and colder temperatures, it might take longer to rise. Also, in summers and warm temperatures, it might take less than an hour to rise.