Sunday, February 5, 2012

VHD 2/12 - Honey Wheat Bread with Oats

With easy access to a zillion Indian stores and restaurants in the Bay Area, I hardly make rotis at home and that means my atta (whole wheat flour) is sitting idle and I had to find an alternate use for it. I have tried wheat cupcakes before and I must say I am not a big fan of those! So, I decided to bake my own bread at home :)



Recipe adapted from: Krissy's Honey Oat Wheat Bread
Makes one 8.5x4.5x2.5 loaf

Ingredients:
Active dry yeast - 1 packet
Warm water - 1/4 C (110 deg F)
Honey - 1/4 C
Unsalted butter - 2 T, melted
Milk - 1 C (I used 2%)
Whole wheat flour/atta - 3 C
Rolled oats - 3/4 C
Salt - 1.5 t

Add the water to the stand mixer bowl and mix in the yeast and let it rise for 5 minutes. Stir in the butter, milk and honey. Now, add the flour, oats and salt and mix on medium speed till the dough comes together. I used the stirrer attachment and then switched to the hook attachment right before adding the dry ingredients. Place the ball of dough in a big greased mixing bowl and let it rise in the oven (turned off) for close to a 2 hours.

Prepare a loaf pan - grease and line it with parchment paper making sure to leave some paper hanging outside the pan.

a lazy click using my 3GS!
Remove the dough and using a rolling pin roll it to a 9x12 (roughly) rectangle. Now, starting from a 9" side roll up the sheet of dough into a log and place it in the prepared pan. Cover the pan with a clean, dry towel and let the dough rise again for close to 2 hours. I just left this on the counter top. About 15-20mins before time, preheat your oven at 350 deg F., heat 1 T of honey in the microwave (10-20 seconds) and brush coat the top of the loaf. Now sprinkle 1-2 T of rolled oats over and bake for 45 minutes.



Notes:
  • The bread was a bit dense for me. I am sure it will be better toasted and with butter or jelly but I know whole wheat breads don't necessarily have to be dense and dry. I am not sure if that happened because I used 3 cups of wheat flour instead of 2 cups of wheat flour and 1 cup of bread flour. I remember my dough was not too sticky (which is good as per recipe) but it didn't rise to double the amount even though the yeast was activated right. I found this LINK with a whole bunch of tips so I am probably going to try this recipe again for a softer loaf :)

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