Oatmeal Walnut Bread

Good morning!  I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  I have been busy freezing cookies for my cookie boxes.  It is so nice cookies freeze great!!  Last year, I froze the dough and did a baking frenzy, but this seems a lot easier.  I can’t freeze my fudge, marshmallows or caramel corn though.

This recipe came with my free packet of Platinum Red Star Yeast.  It was really easy to work with and gave directions for making it by hand.  So, naturally I just threw the ingredients in the bread machine instead and let it do the work.  The bread was delicious with dinner and a great toaster bread as well.  Just a good plain bread to add to a collection of homemade breads.

Oatmeal Walnut Bread
1 loaf – 9″x5″

1 cup water
2 Tb. vegetable or canola oi
4 Tb. molasses
1 and 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup oatmeal (plus a little extra for decoration)
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
2 and 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast (or 1 packet)
3/4 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped (it works without them too)

1.  Place ingredients in the bread machine per the manual.  For my machine, I put all the liquid ingredients in first at a warm temperature.  Then, add the dry stuff: salt, flour, but NOT the nuts.  Finally, poke a hole in the top of the flour heap and put the yeast in there.
2.  At this point you could put your bread machine on normal/medium crust OR the bread cycle and finish the bread in the oven.  Just be sure to add the walnuts 5 minutes before the end of the kneading cycle.
3.  If doing the oven method:  Place dough in a greased loaf pan and cover until ripe.  (You can do this by poking the dough and if it leaves a slight indent, it is ripe.)
4.  Brush the loaf with 1 egg and 1 Tb. water.  Sprinkle with oatmeal.  Bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes.  Let cool 10 minutes and then turn onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Stand Mixer Method:  Combine yeast, 1 cup bread flour, salt, oatmeal and wet ingredients with the paddle for 4 minutes on medium.  Remove the bowl from the mixer and knead the whole wheat flour, walnuts and remaining bread flour to make a firm dough.  Knead 5-7 minutes.  Cover and rise.  Punch and shape onto a cookie sheet.  Cover and rise.  Brush the loaf with 1 egg and 1 Tb. water.  Sprinkle with oatmeal.  Bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes.  Let cool 10 minutes and then turn onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Recipe from Red Star Yeast