Whole Wheat Oat Bread

I have converted almost everyone who has spent more than a week eating in my house from buying and eating store bought sliced bread to baking and savoring (maybe more like inhaling) homemade-oven-fresh bread with this oat wheat bread recipe.  This bread is our daily bread: we eat it for our mid-morning snack, for lunch if we are having sandwiches, for our late afternoon snack, and for dinner if we are having soup.  I actually prefer to free form my loaves, I think they look more homey and more yummy- plus less dishes to wash!  I just put all three loaves on a large cookie sheet.  It is such a tasty, simple and nourishing bread.  You can play with the proportions of whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, and bread flour until you get the loaf you're looking for.  My family prefers a heartier bread with 50% whole wheat.  But this recipe is about 30% whole wheat.  Just use less all purpose and more whole wheat for a heartier loaf.

Oatmeal Bread: three 4.5x8.5 loaves or two big free form loaves
2 cups unbleached bread flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cups raw oats
3 teaspoons sea salt, coarse
3 teaspoons instant yeast
24-26 oz. of water, room temp.
cornmeal for dusting

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix with a spoon to evenly distribute them. Add 24 oz. of water. Mix with a large, stiff spoon or spatula. Just before all of the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, add additional water (or bread flour) until a very tacky, almost sticky ball of dough develops. Let the dough rest, covered with a wet tea towel or a piece of plastic, for about 8 minutes. Knead dough for another 4-6 minutes until dough is smooth and starts pulls away from the sides of the bowl. You can add flour as you need to, but the wetter the dough, the more fluffy the bread will bake. If your dough is too stiff to knead in the bowl, flour a counter top or sturdy kitchen table, and knead on that. However, this means that quite a bit of flour was added, and so the bread will be denser and you will need to knead the dough 3-5 more minutes. No worries, it will still be very tasty.

Let rise for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size (if the room is cooler than 60 degrees, it can take more than 2 hours, but if the room is warmer than 70 degrees, it can rise in 1-1/2 hours). Punch it down, let it rest for 5- 10 minutes. Form into loaves and place on a cornmeal dusted cookie sheet or well greased loaf pan. Cover formed loaves with a wet tea towel or a piece of plastic and let rise until doubled in size. If you let either rise go too long, the dough will start to smell boozey, like alcohol. If you don't let it rise enough, the bread will not be very fluffy and not near as tasty. But no worries, it will still be pretty tasty.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees, or even 550 degrees if you can, for about 20 minutes. Slash the top of your loaves with a sharp knife or razor. Put loaves in the oven bake for 5 minutes. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees, rotate the loaves 180 degrees, and bake for another 10 minutes. Rotate the loaves again, and then bake for another 10 minutes or until a thermometer reads 190 degree for internal loaf temperature.

Wait 10 minutes until slicing and eating this good bread, otherwise you might burn yourself. Oh well, no worries, some lessons are learned the hard way and the bread will still taste good.