Honey and Oat Bread … I'm Back!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Firstly a few apologies… sorry it has been so long since I posted (moving and job hunting is NO excuse I know) and sorry for the lack of quality photos with this post, I knew the bread wouldn't last long and so I had to just take a few quick ones without a good set up.

Now that's out of the way, I hope everyone had a wonderful new year! I had a lovely surprise of a proposal from D after midnight on our 5th year anniversary so I'm still on a happy little high from that. Then we made the move back to Sarina from Townsville and have settled into my parents rumpus room to live while we save some money and decide what to do next!

Unfortunately I don't have an oven in our room so have to invade my parents' kitchen when I want to bake. Not that they complain about having delicious things to eat! So I haven't been working since Christmas and thought I should do some bread to refresh my baking passion. It worked. This recipe is amazing. This is a denser type of bread with a lovely texture and slightly sweet taste. The smells from the kitchen as it baked where heavenly, I had to try a piece straight away while it was still hot and oh my gosh, bliss.

You can easily use this bread to make sandwiches or toasties or you can just eat it. Plain and simple, bit of butter and chow down. 

Honey and Oat Bread

Adapted from GirlVersusDough

What you will need

1 cup water
1 cup milk
1 packet active dry yeast
2 tablespoons honey
2½ cups wholemeal flour
2 cups white flour
1 cup rolled oats, plus more for topping loaf
4 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon salt

What you will need to do

Pour water and milk into a microwave-safe bowl and heat for a minute until warm. Pour into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add yeast and honey. Let sit 10 minutes until yeast is foamy. Stir in flours, oats, oil and salt. Using a dough hook, knead on low to medium speed about 8minutes until dough is smooth, elastic and still a bit sticky. Keep dough in bowl and cover with a tea towel. Let rise 1 hour until doubled.

When dough has doubled, punch down and transfer to a lightly floured surface. Knead again to make the dough come together and shape into a rectangle and roll up into a log. Transfer to a lightly greased loaf pan, seam-side down. Cover with a tea towel and let rise 30 to 40 minutes until dough reaches just higher than the edges of the pan.

Heat oven to 200*C. Lightly spray loaf with water and sprinkle oats on top of loaf. Place loaf into oven and spray the inside of the oven with water to create some steam. Bake 25 to 30 minutes until loaf is brown on top and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Remove from loaf pan and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.