Honey Oat Bread

In my daily eleven hour boredom until Molly gets home, I decided I wanted to try baking a new kind of bread.  I had to go with something that we had the ingredients for.  I knew we had honey and I knew we had oats.  After contemplating this information for hours, I had a brilliant idea:  HONEY OAT BREAD!!!  So, I set about on the internet; that wonderful invention of Henry van Statten or Al Gore, depending on whether you are a fan of Dr. Who or just plain gullible, respectively.  I found many recipes, but they all contained things that were just not in my lexicon:  like self-rising yeast.  I finally found a recipe on eatingwell.com.  As usual (well, if usual is, in fact, usual with this only being my second posting), the address for the original recipe is linked in the last statement.  Having now tried the bread, I find it to be a good recipe, and it was really simple to make. I mostly post recipes on here for my own convenience, as I hate to try to google it every time I want to make it.  However, I am going to break the recipe down a little more so it easier to follow.

Timing:

Preparation:  About 15 minutes

Cooking:      40-50 minutes (maybe a bit more or less depending on your oven.  I'm assuming yours is not 

                    schizophrenic like mine.)

Cooling:       About an hour is recommended.  (15 minutes in pan, then 45 minutes out of pan)

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup of old-fashioned rolled oats for the mixture.
2. About 2-4 tablespoons of old-fashioned rolled oats for pan and topping.
3. 1 and 1/3 cups of whole-wheat flour.
4. 1 cup of all-purpose flour.  (I used the bleached variety.)
5. 2 and 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder.
6. 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda.
7. 1 and 1/4 teaspoons of salt
8. 1 cup of plain yogurt
9. 1 large egg
10. 1/4 cup of oil (either vegetable or canola oil is fine)
11. 1/4 cup of honey
12. 3/4 cups of milk

Directions:

1. Put a rack in the middle of your oven and preheat it to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Sift the wheat flour and the all-purpose flour together into a large bowl.  I sifted two times.  This mixed the different flours together pretty well.  (Also, I read on the internet that sifting wheat flour more than once makes the final product less dense.  And we all know the internet knows everything.)
3. Add the baking soda, baking powder, and salt to the mixed flour.
4. Use a small to medium-sized rubber spatula to mix the baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour together.  
5. Now, get out a medium-sized bowl.  ( I assume you already have the bowl out by this point, as most people would read through the recipe before attempting to make it.  Nevertheless, I added this step just in case the under-prepared, or maybe incredibly stoned tries using this recipe.)
6. In the medium-sized bowl, put the 1 cup of old-fashioned rolled oats.
7. Add the yogurt, egg, oil, and honey to the oats.  
8. Use a fork to stir/beat the oat/yogurt/egg/oil/honey mixture.
9. Now, add the milk to this mix, and stir a bit more with your fork.
10. Leave the two bowls alone for a minute and go to your loaf pan.  Use a cooking spray to grease the bottom and sides of the pan.  Take 1-2 tablespoons of the remaining oats, and sprinkle them on the bottom and sides of the pan.  You don't have to coat it all.  this is just to get some oats on the outside of the bread.
11. Go back to the bowls.
12. Pour half of the yogurt mixture from the medium bowl into the flour mixture in large bowl.
13. Use your spatula to mix this up a bit.
14. Pour the remaining yogurt mixture from the medium bowl into the flour mixture in the large bowl.
15. Use your spatula to mix this thoroughly.  Be careful not to over-mix, as this may toughen your bread.  The consistency will be more like a batter than a dough.  So, it will be looser than other breads.  Do not continue mixing thinking this will make it more dough-like.  (I don't know if most people would have this thought, but I did.  So, either "silly me" or "yay me for saving you from making a mistake")
16. Once you have finished mixing, pour the batter into the greased and oat-ed loaf pan.  
17. Even out the batter in the pan.  
18. Take the remaining 1-2 tablespoons of oats and sprinkle them over the batter.
19. Put the pan in the oven.  (If you've been following along, this pan will contain the batter you just spent all this time making.  If it doesn't, time to give up the baking (as in the process making food), or the BAKING (as in smoking the weed))
20. In 40 minutes, check your bread.  Do this by putting a toothpick or butter knife into the center.  If it comes out clean, it's done.  If not, put it in for 5 more minutes and repeat.
21. Once your knife comes out clean and you take the bread out of the oven, place the pan on a wire rack to cool, for 15 minutes.
22. After 15 minutes, take the bread out of the pan and continue to allow it to cool.  ( the bread, not the pan, though that will likely cool as well.)
23. Let the bread cool until it is just barely still warm.  This may take about 45 minutes.

And there you have it.  A good tasting and easy to make Honey Oat Bread.  I've taken the 3 steps from the original recipe and turned it into 23 steps.  Maybe that's excessive, but I like things spelled out for me when cooking.

--D. Mosier