{31 Days} Cooking from Scratch: Starting out with Bread

This week, we tackled simple breakfast recipes – like muffins, pancakes, & doughnuts.  Then, we tried making tortillas, as a way to get familiar with dough before adding the dreaded…. YEAST! 

Today, we’ll start with a simple bread recipe – one that  uses yeast, but does not require kneading… this will ease you into using yeast!

This recipe is for a wheat oatmeal quick bread.  Most of the time, quick breads are sweet breads – like banana bread, zucchini bread, apple cinnamon oatmeal bread, tea bread or our favorite dark chocolate pumpkin sweet potato bread. 

Quick breads rely on baking powder and/or baking soda to produce carbon dioxide to make the bread rise.  This one, uses yeast in combination with baking soda to help with the rise. 

If you’ve been looking to try making bread from scratch – try this one first. 

Wheat Oatmeal Quick Bread – From Taryn

Ingredients (makes 2 loaves)

• 4 1/2 C flour (mix; whole wheat, white whole wheat, bread & all purpose)
• 2 T sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 4 1/2 tsp. yeast (or 2 pkgs yeast)
• 2 C milk (or water), warmed to 120 degrees F
• 1/2 C whole wheat flour (yes, this is in addition to above)
• 1/2 C quick cooking oats
• 1/2 C wheat germ (or more oats)

Directions

Begin by lightly greasing two bread loaf pans.  Bread loaf pans are typically around 4 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches in size.  If desired, lightly sprinkle the greased pan with cornmeal (I omitted this step). 

In a large bowl, combine 3 1/2 C of flour, 2 T sugar, 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. baking soda and 4 1/2 (or 2 pkgs) yeast.  Stir well. 

Warm up your 2 C milk or water until it reaches 120 degrees F.  You don’t want it to go over 120 – or be too far under 120.  120 degrees is a temperature required for activating yeast – but not killing them! 

Add this warmed milk or water to the flour mixture & stir until moist. 

To this moist dough, add in the remaining 1 C of flour. 

Then, add the 1/2 C whole wheat flour, 1/2 C oats and 1/2 C wheat germ (or more oats). 

To combine this dough together, use your spatula & stir until incorporated.  If you are having trouble, wash those hands and use your hands to get all the flour & oats mixed in. 

Divide the dough in half, and place each half into a loaf pan.  You may wish to lightly shape the dough into a “loaf” during this process.  Think of it like play  dough/clay and just shape it so that it fits well into the pan.  I find that pressing down the edges towards the bottom on the pan helps shape the loaf. 

Cover with a tea towel or a piece of plastic wrap, and allow to rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes.   After 30 minutes, the dough should raise slightly in the middle – however, the rise will not be HUGE, so don’t be alarmed if your dough hasn’t doubled or anything at this point. 

See how the dough is slightly higher here in the center and the dough on the top looks more elastic/stretched than it did in the image above?  That’s what you’re looking for to know if the dough has started to lift. 

However, if your dough has not risen at all, try this trick:

Warm up 1 C water in your microwave until it boils.  Leave the cup in the microwave, and add your covered pan of bread to the microwave too.  Shut the door.  Allow your bread to rise in the warm & now humid microwave (thanks to the boiling water) for 20-30 minutes. 

Preheat your oven to 400, keeping your dough covered on top of the oven while your oven preheats. 

Uncover your bread and place it in your oven at 400 degrees F.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, until your bread is lightly browned. 

Take the bread out of the oven, and after 1 minute, remove the bread from the pan and place it on a cooling wrack. 

If the pan was greased well, you should just be able to loosen up the sides of the bread, tip the pan over and your bread should pop right out. 

Allow the bread to cool completely before slicing to eat, wrapping to freeze, or storing it in an airtight container. 

This recipe makes 2 loaves -- you can easily freeze one of the loaves for later, or you can split the recipe in half and just make one loaf.

Have you tried making homemade bread?  Are you ready to try this week?!