The Very Best Bread of All....

I think there's this misconception about baking bread-- that it's something hard to do or that it has to be some big deal to make it.  I love baking bread for lots of reasons, but in this season of life, it's mainly because I haven't found a reliable dairy and soy free store-bought bread and I'm not about to go a year (or however long we end up nursing) without bread.  That's just too much to ask of a girl! 

So I give you...
The Very Best Bread of All!



We LIVE off of this stuff around our house. I don't know what I would have done were it not for this wonderful recipe! I've included the basic recipe and then the tweaks I've made over time along with a few suggestions that I've found helpful. I hope you will enjoy it as much as we have...

You can make this dough in a bread machine (I just have a cheap-o Oster machine from walmart and it works great!) or you can do it by hand. 


Oat Bread
2 and 1/2 cups of water (cold if using a machine, warm if by hand)
1 cup of oats
1/2 cup of whole wheat
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
3 TBSP canola oil
5 cups white bread flour
1 pkg yeast (2 and 1/4 tsp jar)


Machine:
*Put in bread machine in the order listed and set to dough cycle, allow it to rise in the machine (it will be huge)

By hand:
* knead til smooth- 5-10 min.
*double covered in a big bowl (1-1 and 1/2 hours)



*preheat the oven to 350

*After dough has finished rising, punch down, cut in half, shape like loaf, put into two greased loaf pans (I rub canola oil around the pan with a paper towel)




 

*allow the dough to rise (roughly double) in the pans for 30 min.
(I put the pans on the stove and cover them with a towel that covers the front of the oven as well.  This traps a little of the heat under the towel and helps them rise. 
When the towel that I've covered it with gets a little hill, I know it's time to stick them in the oven :) )



*bake 30 min at 350

Take out of the oven, allow them to cool in the pans for a few minutes...



and then completely on a rack...






That's all there is to it!  Give it a try! 




Here's some tips I've found along the way:

*Makes DELICIOUS cinnamon toast and when it starts getting a little dry- french toast! :) But my dear hubby just prefers it with lots of plain ole butter nuked in the microwave for a few secs!
And now that I've discovered Dairy and Soy Free BUTTER, I enjoy it that way too!!
We also make sandwiches out of it!



*Another option is to wrap one of the loaves in saran wrap and then in aluminum foil and freeze it. Thaw it in the fridge for a day before putting it out. It's really pretty good this way- a little dry- but excellent for toast or french toast!

This is what my counter looks like when I'm making bread:
{note the little basket of ingredients on the left}



I have a basket that I keep all of my bread ingredients in.  That way, when I go to make bread, instead of hunting down all the ingredients, I just grab the basket! 




In the containers in the basket, I have the measuring cups that I use for each part of the recipe.  That way I don't have to wash the measuring cups each time I make bread, or hunt down the right size.  It's just cuts down on the process of it all....



I buy bread machine yeast in the jars.  Just be sure to keep it in the fridge, not in the bread basket :)



Since this recipe makes two loaves, sometimes I'll make just one loaf of bread and instead of using the remaining dough for another loaf, I'll form it into buns (just balls of dough smashed flat) for use as hamburger or BBQ buns. 



There's also a correlation between milk supply and oatmeal, (as discussed in this article) so eating oat bread could have some added benefits to a milkin' mama! :)

And lately I've been storing the bread in a tupperware container with press and seal saran wrap on top, just like I do my banana bread . In order to keep it moist, I cut the end piece and keep it pressed against the remaining loaf.



The hardest part is waiting for the bread to cool enough to slice :)



This bread rocks my dairy/soy free world! :)