Maple Oatmeal Bread

Ever since my successful attempt at making whole wheat bread, I’ve been on a bread-making kick. Last week, I decided to try King Arthur Flour’s whole wheat oatmeal honey bread, after seeing it on my friend Shelly’s Facebook page. It wasn’t until after I’d finished making the bread that I realized I’d actually made a different King Arthur Flour bread, the Maple Oatmeal Bread. Oops! Chalk it up to a “mommy brain” moment. In my defense, though, the recipe titles were very similar, as were the lists of ingredients. As far as mistakes go, this was a tasty one — the loaf disappeared within a few hours. Seriously. I still want to try the honey variety that Shelly made, but this one’s a keeper also. The maple taste is there, but not in an overwhelming way. This is an excellent bread for PB&Js. I also tried it with ham, and I loved the juxtaposition of the salty ham with the slight sweetness of the bread. Yum!

King Arthur Flour’s Maple Oatmeal Bread

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons hot water*
• 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/4 cup real maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon maple flavor**
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 cup King Arthur 100% White Whole Wheat Flour
• 2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast*
• water, to brush on crust
• 2 to 3 teaspoons maple sugar, for sprinkling***

*If you’re using active dry yeast in an envelope (as I was), instead of instant yeast, dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup (or whatever your envelope states is the right amount of water) of warm water, then reduce the amount of hot water called for in the recipe by 1/4 cup. Thanks to Shelly for the tip!

**You can find maple extract in the baking aisle at the grocery store. I skipped this because I didn’t have any on hand.

***I used brown sugar instead.

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl, combine the hot water, oats, maple syrup, maple flavor, butter, salt, and cinnamon.

Add the flours and yeast (or the yeast melted in warm water if you’re using envelope yeast), stirring to form a rough dough. Knead for 10 minutes by hand or 7 minutes by machine, enough to make a springy dough.

Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and allow the dough to rise for 60 to 90 minutes. It should become very puffy and double in bulk.

Gently punch down the dough and shape it into an 8-inch log. Place it in a lightly greased 8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ loaf pan. Cover the pan, and set the loaf aside to rise until it’s crowned about one inch over the rim of the pan, about 60 to 90 minutes. Mine didn’t ever crown that high, but the resulting bread was still awesome.

Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.

Gently brush the top of the risen loaf with water, and sprinkle with maple or brown sugar.

Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, tenting with foil after about 15 minutes to prevent over-browning. The interior of the fully baked loaf should read 190°F on an instant-read thermometer. (I skipped the thermometer part.)

Remove the bread from the oven. After five minutes, turn the bread onto a rack to cool completely before slicing.

Let me tell you that this bread is excellent when sliced thickly, toasted, smeared with butter, and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Mmmm! Breakfast of champions!