Oatmeal Wheat Bread

This is a homemade healthy everyday bread. It is a basic recipe I found after researching and making changes to suit my own. It came out very well, soft and airy. I wanted to bake a bread as it was long since I baked one at home. I wanted to try something which I had never baked earlier. This recipe is a keeper. No doubt, it is healthy with the wheat flour and oatmeal.

Ingredients

Old-Fashioned oats - 1 cup
Whole Wheat flour - 2 cups
Bread flour/unbleached all-purpose flour - 1 cup
Buttermilk - 3/4 cup
Water - 1/4 cup
Butter - 3 tablespoons
Sugar - 3 tablespoons
Active Dry Yeast - 3 teaspoons
Oats - 2 teaspoons for topping

Directions

Take about 1/4 cup of lukewarm water and add the sugar and yeast and stir till they dissolve. The water should be lukewarm for the yeast to work best. It should not be too hot as it might kill the yeast! Set it aside until it gets frothy.

Cook the oats with water until creamy. It should be in a thick consistency and not soupy. Cool the mixture. To the oats mixture, add the buttermilk, butter, bread flour and whole wheat flour. Finally add the frothy yeast-sugar mixture.

Knead well to get an elastic dough. The dough should be smooth. Grease the surface with oil and place in a bowl covered with a towel. Allow the dough to rise for about one hour till doubled.

Punch down the dough and knead it slightly. Take care not to knead too much as it releases all the air in the pockets. Shape the dough into a loaf and transfer it to a greased loaf pan.

Make two or three slits on the top of the loaf for the air to escape. Brush with a little milk and sprinkle the oats on top.

Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degree F for about 40 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Allow it to cool a bit and remove carefully from the loaf pan and cool in a wire rack.

Serve with warm butter!

This is my entry to JFI:Wheat

What's Cooking:Homemade Bread

Yeastspotting

Whole Grain (Eggless) Baking Event - Oats

and EFM:Oats