oat bread

I’m gradually trying new recipes out of the Kneadlessly Simple bread cookbook that I got for Christmas. First up: oat bread. As it happens, I have some extra molasses on hand, which is the one ingredient in addition to the usual flour, sugar, salt, yeast, oil & water. Oh, and of course in this case also oats, and I always have oats on hand, either for oatmeal or for cookies. 🙂

Mixing up was pretty much the same as the basic white bread I’ve made before; the molasses gets mixed in with the liquid ingredients, and the oats with the dry ones. It seems like this dough was even less interested in rising* than the white, unfortunately, but it did finally rise enough to get put in the oven.

It also rose a little less in the baking, but smelled fantastic. I probably overcooked it by a couple of minutes: the crust was a little darker and tougher than I would have liked. OTOH, it was delicious. Almost dessert-like, good flavor, solid texture. Not all that much cold, but incredibly good lightly toasted with a little butter. I think it would’ve been heavenly topped with a little honey, but we didn’t have any. Actually had just bread for lunch one day this week (horrid canned soup that I couldn’t stand to eat) and was surprisingly full all afternoon.

Will definitely make again with a slightly shorter time in the oven.

* I’ve got a batch of English muffin bread rising at the moment, and it seems to be coming up much faster. It’s also somewhat wetter dough, and I’m starting to wonder if I haven’t been adding enough water to all my doughs.