No Knead Oatmeal Bread

It's bread baking time.

I'm happy to report that the weather is delightfully chilly here in Rhode Island and that we even had a few inches of snow last week!

I love snow. Love, love, love it!

I'm so used to the all the grumblings about it too. I don't even let it bother me anymore. I know lots of people who live here hate it and to them I say....MOVE! You live in Rhode Island. It's going to snow. That's not going to change, so either embrace it or move somewhere that it doesn't snow! Simple as that.

Phew....I'm done with that rant. I feel so much better.

So anyway, where was I?  So it snowed and it make me so happy, even thought it was only a few measly inches and it only last a day it made we want to make hot cocoa and pies and soup and bread.

What better to eat with a piping hot bowl of soup. Bread. No knead bread for that matter.

This is a great recipe from Alexandra's Kitchen. It makes 2 loaves! I love that it's loaded with oats. It's great for toasting. It's great with butter. It's great with jam. It's just great.

Make it....especially if it's snowing!

This is how mine looked rising. I just snapped a quick picture and got it back into the oven.



One other little note. I did not use as much flour as the recipe called for. My dough was too dry to try and get another cup in, so I used 2 1/2 cups of each instead of 3.





No-Knead Oatmeal Bread
recipe from Alexandra's Kitchen
Yield = 2 loaves
Adapted from Kathleen’s Bake Shop Cookbook

3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 3/4 cups old-fashioned oats
3 cups boiling water
2 tablespoons of butter
1 pkg active dry yeast = 2.25 teaspoons
1/4 cup warm water
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups whole wheat flour

1. Place brown sugar, salt and oats in a large mixing bowl. Add boiling water. Add butter. Let stand till lukewarm. Note: This is the only place where you could mess up the recipe. The mixture must cool to a lukewarm temperature so that it doesn’t kill the yeast.

2. In a small bowl, sprinkle yeast over the 1/4 cup warm water. Let stand for about 5 minutes. Stir. Add this yeast mixture to the oat mixture and stir.

3. Add the flours a little bit at a time. My old recipe says to add it one cup at a time, but I’m never that patient. Add it as slowly as you can tolerate, stirring to combine after each addition.

4. Transfer dough to a lightly greased bowl and cover with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm spot until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours. This is what I always do for my “warm spot”: preheat the oven to its hottest setting for 1 minute. TURN OFF THE OVEN. Place covered bowl in the oven to rise until doubled.

5. Grease two standard sized loaf pans generously with butter. When dough has risen, punch it down. I use two forks to do this. I stab the dough in the center first, then pull the dough from the sides of the bowl towards the center up onto itself. Then I take my two forks and, working from the center out, I divide it into two equal portions. Place each portion into your prepared loaf pans. Let rise until dough creeps above the rim of the loaf pan.

6. Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Bake loaves for 10 min. Reduce heat to 350ºF. Bake for another 40 to 45 more minutes or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped — you have to (obviously) remove the loaf from the pan to test this. Turn loaves out into wire racks immediately to cool.