So you are wondering if oatmeal homemade bread is healthier than store-bought? Oh yes baby, it is. And it’s so easy to make! This homemade bread recipe took me 2 hours, but most of that was waiting for it to get nice and fluffy.
Oatmeal Homemade Bread Recipe
Ok, so I just have to say that this oatmeal homemade bread recipe was SO very easy to make. You will see in the photos below the very few steps it took to make it. I think it was very easy for me because I have a KitchenAid Mixer that I use to knead the dough and that takes all of five minutes when I can put away the ingredients used to make the bread.
Why Homemade Bread Is Healthier
It’s so worth it to make your own homemade oatmeal bread. Do you ever look at the ingredients on your loaf of bread and see the following: Bromated. High Fructose Corn Syrup. Azodicarbonamide, Mono & Di-glycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate (SSL), and Diacetyl Esters of Tartaric Acid (DATEM), and Lecithin? Yikes! These ingredients are not good people! They are just preservatives to keep the bread moist or they are additives to sweeten the bread or adjust the taste in some way.
So what are your options when you need to buy bread? Obviously not everyone has the time to make their own homemade bread. I hardly have the time but have found a really great and easy recipe that allows me to do so. You can thank me later when your family devours the first batch in one day. The night I made this bread the first time, my kids ate half the loaf before bed with just butter on it.
Sometimes you can find organic bread on sale in the grocery store and beats making your own bread if you don’t have time. Vermont Bread Company has minimal ingredients and is located in New England. Most of the time, however, organic bread is more than $5 for one small loaf! And it doesn’t even last very long. But the reason why cheaper bread lasts so long is because there are such gross ingredients in them. In the post 5 Reasons Why Homemade Bread is Better I talk about why homemade bread is healthier. Below is a list of common chemicals in commercial bread. Caution: may cause you to become dizzy and lose your balance.
Common Chemicals in Commercial Bread
- Bromate (or Potassium Bromate) is a flour “improver” that strengthens dough and allows for greater oven spring and higher rising in the oven. if too much is used, or the bread is not baked long enough or at a high enough temperature, then a residual amount will remain, which is known to cause cancer.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup is a man-made sweetener that doesn’t break down in the body the same way regular sugar does. Often it settles on our waistlines and causes cravings for more, which creates weight gain. It’s a vicious cycle.
- Azodicarbonamide is a bleaching agent. Besides making the bread whiter by reacting with cartonene in the flour, it is an orange, odorless, powder. Ew.
- Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Monoglycerides (DATEM) is another dough conditioner used to improve volume and uniformity. It is considered safe by the FDA, but a study in 2002, on rats, it showed “heart muscle fibrosis and adrenal overgrowth”.
- Mono & Di-glycerides are partially hydrogenated oils. If you haven’t heard of this I dare say you’ve been living under a rock.
- Lecithin is obtained from soy, which means genetically modified plants. Ugh.
If you can’t find bread with ingredients you can pronounce, try this recipe below. It’s so easy, I promise.
Oatmeal Homemade Bread Recipe
So after you add your ingredients to your bowl – whether you are using your hands, a KitchenAid Mixer or a bread machine, you still want to put the liquids on the bottom and the dry ingredients on top. Then make a little well in the flour for the yeast – you don’t want it to land into the water until you are mixing.
Once the dough is kneaded, just transfer it to a lightly-oiled bowl and cover with a few towels and keep away from a draft for about 1 hour. Perfect time to go get the kids from the bus!
After an hour, take the dough and turn it onto an oiled surface and shape it into a loaf. This shouldn’t take more than 1-2 seconds because at this point the dough is very pliable. I like using metal pans – I tried to use a silicone bread pan and my bread was super wide. It still tasted awesome though!
I let the bread sit in the bread pan and simply placed a plastic container over it that actually fit quite perfectly over the bread pan, just to allow the bread room to rise. You just need to use something that won’t stick to the top of the bread as it rises or it WILL deflate when you take it off!
At this point you just put the bread in the oven for 35 minutes. Be prepared for a lot of whining and “can I have bread” until you take the bread out and it cools off. All of this time is very exciting but also frustrating for very excited kids!
Oatmeal Homemade Bread Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups warm water
- 1/4 cup honey
- 3 cups bread flour
- 1 cup oatmeal
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp yeast
Oatmeal Homemade Bread
This oatmeal homemade bread recipe was SO very easy to make. You will see in the photos below the very few steps it took to make it.
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups warm water
- 1/4 cup honey
- 3 cups bread flour
- 1 cup oatmeal
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp yeast
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, or in the bowl of an electric mixer, combine all of the ingredients with water and honey on the bottom, mixing to form a shaggy dough. Knead dough, by hand (10 minutes) or by machine (5 minutes) till it's smooth.
- Place dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover and allow it to rest for 1 hour; it'll become quite puffy, though it may not double in bulk. Shape as directed below.
- Shaping: Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled surface, and shape it into a log. Place the log in a lightly greased 9 x 5-inch loaf pan, cover the pan (with an acrylic proof cover, or with lightly greased plastic wrap), and allow the dough to rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, till it's crested 1" to 2" over the rim of the pan.
- Baking: Bake the bread in a preheated 350°F oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center registers 190°F. If the bread appears to be browning too quickly, tent it with aluminum foil for the final 10 minutes of baking.
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I am a New England mama of 3 kids, 3 kitties and 2 puppies! I grew up in the great state of NH and blog about all things healthy and natural near Nashua and Boston.
I was going to make this but I don’t see the ingredients.
Ariana, I just fixed this. I’m so sorry!
Sounds good, and looks good, but I just can’t follow the directions. I regularly make bread, and add the yeast to warm water and add honey and leave it to activate, but that doesn’t appear to be the case here.
I’m sorry Alan! The recipe is pretty straightforward. You basically just throw the wet ingredients and then the dry into the bread machine and turn it on. You don’t have to mix the yeast in warm water ahead of time. I hope you will try it!
Apologies Vicki, but I didn’t register the fact that it’s a recipe for a bread machine ((which I don’t have, and have never used), thus the confusion. I’ll experiment with doing it manually, and keep my fingers crossed!
Thanks for the recipe Vicky, but I don’t see oatmeal in the ingredient list. How much should I add, and what kind?
The only recipe I see on this page is for moroocan white bean stew…
I’ve never tried an oatmeal bread before, but the honey makes me intreaged.
This bread looks so good! I love homemade bread, so I can’t wait to try this recipe!
Since I’ve learned how to make bread, I never had store-bought bread again. I have never tried making bread loaf, though. This one looks like a good recipe to try. Questions – how is the texture of the bread and how long can I keep this? Thanks in advance. 🙂
Sounds delicious. Thanks for sharing at the To Grandma’s House We Go DIY, Crafts, Recipes and More Link Party! I pinned this. Hope to see you at the next party.
I can almost smell this amazing bread as it comes out of the oven, I can’t wait to make it! Hope you are having a good week and staying warm. Thanks so much for sharing with us at Full Plate Thursday!
Miz Helen
Wonderful bread recipe. I shall give it a try. Thanks for linking to Fiesta Friday!