Pretty Whole Wheat Oatmeal Honey Bread
This recipe for one boule of delicious soft, mildly sweet bread, scored and shaped into a pretty pumpkin shape!
Ingredients
For bread
- 1 cup boiling water
- ½ cup Rolled oats
- ¼ cup Brown sugar or Maple Syrup
- ½ tsp Honey
- 2 Tbs Butter, softened
- 1¼ tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 2 cups All Purpose Flour
- ¾ cup Whole Wheat Flour
- ½ Tbs Active Yeast
For shaping
- 1 piece Parchment, approx 15"x15"
- 4 length kitchen twine, 15" -20”
- 1 egg, lightly beaten with 1Tbs water for eggwash
- Baker's lame
- Dutch Oven
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the boiling water, oats, sugar, honey, butter, salt, and cinnamon. Stir and let cool to lukewarm (100°F to 110°F), about 10 to 15 minutes
- Add the yeast and flours, stirring to form a rough dough. Knead (about 10 minutes by hand, 5 to 7 minutes by machine) until the dough is smooth and satiny.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly greased round bowl, cover the bowl with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the dough to rise for 1 hour.
- Punch down dough and shape into a boule, cover with plastic wrap again and let it rest for another 60 minutes.
- When waiting for the dough to proof, prepare a piece of parchment paper larger than the dutch oven. Next, cut out 4 lengths of kitchen twine, measuring approx 15 to 20 inches each.
- Then, lay them on top of the parchment paper to create a criss cross pattern. The twine will give the bread the pretty pumpkin like shape when baked.
- When ready, carefully transfer the dough directly on top of the prepared twines.
- Tie the twines loosely. Cut off the excess bits. Adjust the twines so that the sections are approximately equal in size.
- Apply eggwash to the bread. Next, score each section of the bread in the pattern that you like. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Holding the parchment paper, transfer the dough into the dutch oven, cover and bake for 40 minutes. Remove lid and bake for another 5-10 minutes until the top is golden and internal temp measures 190°F.
- Remove from oven, place on cooling rack. Snip off twine and the bread is ready!
Notes
- Lightly oil the twine so that it would not stick to the bread after baking.
- Remember to tie the twine loosely so that there is space for the bread to expand and create the lovely shape. If you tie too tightly the twine will be deeply embedded into the bread which makes it difficult to remove without tearing.
- When removing twine, tug gently and guide with your fingers to minimize tear to the bread surface.