whole wheat oatmeal bread

Hello, friends. Today I want to introduce to you a very humble-looking, but magical-tasting loaf of sandwich bread.

I grew up on every kind of sandwich bread in the bread aisle - from the whitest to the wheatiest, to the sweetest cinnamon raisin to the grainiest of toasts. Instead of school lunch, I always had two slices of toast with "something" in between, with that "something" really depending on what we had in the house.

When my father packed lunches, it was usually some predictable formula of Lunch Meat + Condiment, whereas my mother, who liked to experiment, once had me eat blueberry yogurt with avocados on toast. It was...interesting - and quite mushy, if I recall. The worst was 2 weeks of mayonnaise and cucumbers, though. (I. hate. mayo. With a passion.) But, I suppose, who's to complain when you're being served food?

Me and my sister (and my suitemates this past year) consumed bread at egregious rates. I've always wondered if it was cheaper to make your own sandwich bread than it was spill a few dollars every week for a new bag. After all: bread is cheap! It seems hardly worth the time and effort to save a few pennies to make your own bread than to buy it. But after making this whole wheat oatmeal bread, I realized that the difference here is not so much monetary as it is in taste.

Because... yo, storebought bread, I'm really happy for you. Imma let you finish. But homemade sandwich bread is some of the best breads of all time! Some of the best breads of all time!

I'm serious. It's so good that my father ate it for breakfast and for dinner, too. It's so good that I woke up the next morning anticipating eating it, only to find an empty container with crumbs at the bottom. Thanks, dad! I ate those crumbs! And I enjoyed every particle left of it! True story.

Breakfast is served.

If you ever need a trusty bread recipe, I highly recommend heading to the King Arthur Flour website. And hey, I highly recommend this adapted recipe, too. I based it off of their Vermont whole wheat oatmeal bread recipe, but subbed oil for butter and added molasses. This bread smells like cinnamon and molasses, like a candle shop in the fall, but in a more fragrant and less obnoxious way, so you'd actually want to eat it. It's fluffy and sweet with hardly any trace of whole wheat bitterness, although I'll confess it's only about 25% whole wheat (wait, that's still healthy enough, right?). Regardless, it's delicioso, and everyone deserves a slice of homemade sandwich bread. It could change your life.

P.S. According to my crude calculations based on awkward conversions and Walmart's online pricing, sandwich bread is just barely cheaper to make at home (roughly $1.22) than it is to buy in the store (roughly $2.00). Only if you ignore the labor, utility and opportunity costs, that is.

whole wheat oatmeal bread (slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour)
227g hot water [$0]
50g oatmeal [$0.15]
10g honey [$0.09]
10g unsulfured blackstrap molasses [$0.08]
50g brown sugar [$0.14]
25g canola oil [$0.05]
1/2 Tbs salt [$0]
1/2 tsp cinnamon [$0.05]
1/2 Tbs yeast [$0.25]
85g white whole wheat flour [0.15]
240g all purpose flour [$0.26]

Yield 1 loaf, about 13-15 slices

1. In a bowl, mix the hot water, oatmeal, honey, molasses, brown sugar, oil, salt, cinnamon. Let the mixture sit for 10-15 minutes, or until it's warm and not hot.
2. Once the mixture is ready, mix in the yeast and the flours. Knead until smooth dough forms.
3. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with cloth or plastic wrap and let is rise for 1 hour.
4. Knead the dough into a loaf shape and place in the greased loaf pan. Let it rise for 1-1.5 hours, or until the dough is approx. 1 inch above the lip of the pan. (see photo below for reference)

5. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, place a foil tent over the dough to protect it from burning. Continue baking at 350 F for another 15-20 minutes.
6. Let the bread cool thoroughly before slicing. Enjoy!