Bread Machine Honey Oatmeal Bread

Bread Machine Honey Oatmeal Bread - made April 9, 2020, modified from Happy Hooligans

To partially echo my previous post, an observation off the bat: there seems to have been an astonishing shortage of flour and yeast lately, second only to the Great Toilet Paper Shortage in stores. Is the lost art of homemade bread baking making a comeback? I, for one, hope so because I love bread. LOVE. So much so that, at the risk of having my Filipino card revoked, I love bread more than rice. I can go days without eating rice. I prefer not to go without bread for any length of time.

This is how small the bread container is - makes a 1-lb loaf

dough in the proofing stage

That said, I rarely make bread at home. So rarely, in fact, that I bought a mini breadmaker years ago (in COVID-19 timelines, that would be back when dinosaurs roamed the earth) and can't even remember the last time I used it. I know it was before my Marie Kondo decluttering phase which was at least 5-7 years ago. I didn't know whether my bread machine brought me joy because at the time I bought (and used it), I wasn't attaching emotions to my inanimate possessions and couldn't remember what feelings my long-dormant bread machine evoked back when I actually used it.

But, despite my somewhat successful decluttering (I really did get rid of a lot of stuff), for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to get rid of my breadmaker. Maybe because it was expensive, even in the mini size. Maybe because I really do love bread and was unwilling to part ways with an appliance that could make it. Maybe because I thought "someday" I would make bread more often.

Now, during these times, I'm extremely glad I held onto it. Being short of flour was never a danger for me because, hello, baker here. My pantry is never low on flour, shortage in the stores or not. Plus, hi, Costco shopper also present. I buy the organic flour that Costco sells as two 10-pound packs. So it takes me awhile to go through flour, especially since I've cut back on baking lately. This recipe calls for bread flour and lo and behold, I had a 5-lb bag of that as well. But what really pushed me to bust out my breadmaker was coming across yeast at Winco. They didn't have piles of yeast packs but there were enough that I snagged three of the 3-packs and there was still plenty of yeast left. I kept 2 individual packs for myself and mailed the rest off to friends who wanted to bake bread and were lamenting the yeast shortage in their local stores.

I modified this recipe because, as mentioned, I only have a mini breadmaker. I can't remember how much it can hold but from how small it is, probably nothing larger than ingredients for a 1-pound loaf. The original recipe calls for putting this on a "1 1/2-lb" bread setting. I don't have that setting on my breadmaker. So I just cut the ingredients to either 2/3 or 3/4 of the recipe and hoped that would work (spoiler: it did).

Like the breadmaking version of an instant pot, the great thing about bread machines is you put everything in the machine, close it, press a button and go away for several hours. After that, voila, fresh bread. Similar to making spaghetti or other pasta dishes in the instant pot, you do have to put everything in a particular order and you don't stir it once you do. Nope, just layer in the ingredients with the wet ingredients first then the dry ingredients and lastly the yeast. Then go away.

But make sure you come back when the bread machine is done because, wow, this bread is amazing. I loved it. It had just the right texture, not too dense but not too light and it was delicious. The oatmeal itself somehow "melted" into the dough because there are no distinct oatmeal flakes in it but I think it helps give the bread some structure. I don't normally like honey and you can't taste it in the bread but it is a tiny bit sweeter than generic white bread. I set my bread machine on the soft crust setting which was perfect to complement the chewiness of the inside. I'm so glad I (literally) dusted off my bread machine and made this bread. I'll be making it again, probably multiple times. Or at least until I run out of yeast.

A couple of bread and bread machine baking tips: make sure your water is warm (100-110 degrees F is optimal). Too hot and it'll kill the yeast. Too cold and it won't activate the yeast as well. Also, don't let the salt touch the yeast when you layer in your ingredients. Separate it with the flour. Salt interacting with the yeast too soon will kill your yeast.

In the pictures, you'll see a loaf made with the original recipe cut in half. I've since made this bread 3 more times and gradually increased the ingredients until it more fully filled the pan. Those measurements are what I list below.

Modified for a 1-lb loaf (see original post from Happy Hooligans for full recipe)
6 ounces water, 100-110 degrees F
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 generous tablespoon honey
3/4 tablespoon softened butter
1/3 cup quick cook oats (I used old-fashioned and it was fine)
1 7/8 cups bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1. Place water, honey and butter at the bottom of bread machine pan. Add oats, salt and bread flour then yeast.
2. For my mini bread machine, I chose the basic loaf setting with a soft crust. My machine said it would take 3 hours. That worked well. Your bread machine may have different settings. If you make the full recipe, I would chose a basic bread setting that would take between 2 1/2 to 3 hours.