Mouthwatering Whole-Grain Oat Bread

I've been trying to come up with some variations on my whole-grain bread recipe to give us a little variety. This is the most recent variation. I'm keeping it here so I can refer back and make it again - it was soo delicious!! The texture was amazing, stuck together nicely with no crumbs. It stored really well - still delicious 4 days after I made it. My new favorite!

Whole-Grain Oat Bread

Printable Recipe

*Makes 3 loaves

INGREDIENTS:

3 Cups hot water, microwave on high 2-3 min or until quite warm ( >110° F)
1/3 Cup oil
1/3 Cup sugar 
1 Tbsp. salt (put in first before adding yeast)
5+ Cups freshly ground oat flour (I ground oat groats, but you can also use oatmeal ground in a blender for a few minutes)
1-½ Cups gluten flour*

1/4 Cup ground flax seed

2 Tbsp. yeast on top of flour

DIRECTIONS:

Combine above ingredients in Bosch mixer with dough hook and mix. Add more oat flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Then mix for an additional six minutes. Divide dough into 3 loaves (the dough will still be VERY sticky - so sticky that you won't be able to form your loaves without putting oil on your hands). Put dough in oiled pans. Let rise until double or until the bread fills the pans. While bread is rising, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. When the bread has risen, bake it at 400 deg. for 5 minutes. Then turn down the heat to 350 degrees and continue baking for 25 min or until done.

*NOTE on the gluten flour: I use Bob's Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten Flour that I buy at WinCo foods in their bulk bins - or you can get a 25 lb. bag of it there if you order it. I think you can also get it at Walmart in smaller quantities - like 22 oz. pkgs. You only use a little bit in each batch so it lasts a long time. It allows you to make the bread with whole-grain flour and still have it light and fluffy and stick together. This really is not an optional ingredient - you can try to leave it out, but you will end up with denser bread, that is crumbly, doesn't have as long of a shelf life and really is not as enjoyable to eat. Another option (if you're looking for one) is to use a good quality, high gluten white flour instead of some of the whole-wheat flour (experiment with how much - maybe 2 cups or more to get it to a good stick-together consistency). I'd rather spend a little more for the gluten flour because you can use less of it (which means more whole-grain flour which is better for you) and still have a great textured, tasty bread.

Recipe Source: healthyfamilycookin.blogspot.com

For lunch I made scones out of the dough from one loaf. To make them fry a small piece of dough on both sides in a frying pan with oil and spread honey on top -mmmmh! They were the best tasting scones I've ever had!