Honey Oatmeal Bread Made with Love
By: Patricia Davis
Tags: Food, Cooking, Family, Recipe, Life

When I was a little girl, I remember waking up to the smell of fresh bread that my mother had baked that morning. She would cut me a thick slice, still warm, and generously smear butter on it. This loaf of bread would not stay around long because when I wanted a snack, I would eat this every time.

I watched my mom make this bread, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that my grandma taught me how to make bread of any kind. Her yeast rolls are what my family requests me to bring to our large Thanksgiving dinners, though we haven’t met during this pandemic.

Because of the pandemic, I was forced to find an alternative to using store bought yeast for this recipe because I simply couldn’t buy it. After much research, I developed my own wild yeast levain, also known as sourdough starter. After building it up through regular feedings, I could make bread.

While I built up my starter, I did research on how to use it to make bread. Since my starter is made with all-purpose flour and not rye flour, it has a sweeter taste to it, so it is much less sour than normal sourdough, but it does contribute some of that lovely flavor. Here is the recipe I follow.

Honey Oatmeal Bread Recipe

Print this recipe — it includes the original recipe using store-bought yeast.

Start with a poolish mix — Mixture 1

A poolish mix is used to give your wild yeast stamina and strength. This is the equivalent to dissolving your store-bought yeast in warm water and adding a bit of sugar to make it start rising. While store bought yeast does this within minutes, it takes several hours for the poolish mix to develop.

It is worth the wait.

Before I begin making the poolish mix, I make sure I have fed my starter that morning, usually about 4 to 6 hours before. This insures that the yeast is highly active, which makes the poolie more robust.

Poolish Ingredients

⅓ cup (75 grams) water

½ cup (75 grams) flour

⅔ cup (150 grams) wild yeast starter, fed within the last 8 hours

In a 3-cup bowl, mix the starter and water. Stir in the flour until it is well combined. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 4 to 6 hours. During this time, you will see it rise to about double its original height. If you want, you can start this before you go to bed and let it rise overnight.

Create your oat base — Mixture 2

As this is oatmeal bread, this part of the recipe is the star. You want to use rolled oats, not instant, as they hold up better, absorb less water, and give the bread a better texture. I use Quaker Old Fashioned rolled oats, but you can use whatever brand you prefer.

Oatmeal base ingredients

1 ¾ cups (413 grams) boiling water

1 cup (80 grams) rolled oats

2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter

Mix water, oats and butter in a large bowl and let stand for 30 minutes before adding the remaining ingredients.

2 ½ teaspoons (15 grams) kosher salt

½ cup (168 grams) honey (or molasses or raisins)

Mix together until well combined.

Mix it all together

Stir the poolish mix (mixture 1) into the oat mix (mixture 2.) Continue to stir until thoroughly mixed together before beginning to add the flour.

Remaining ingredient

5 ¼ cups (746 grams) flour

Begin adding flour gradually, mixing a half cup at a time until the dough is soft and not too sticky. Reserve 1 ½ to 2 cups (220–300 grams) from the total amount of flour (5 ¼ cups) for kneading.

At this point the dough will be very tacky, so you will need to use the reserved flour on the counter and your hands before you start to knead the bread. Spread about ¼ to ½ cup of flour on your counter. If you have a marble or stone surface to knead the dough, use it. It works great.

Knead the dough — this is not scary, I promise!

Scrape the dough from your bowl onto the floured surface. Fold the dough toward you and press down firmly with the ball of your hand, pushing away from you. The dough will feel somewhat resistant to being pushed. Lift the dough and rotate ¼ turn, then repeat the fold and push technique.

When the dough sticks to your countertop, use a bench scraper to help you lift it, if you have one. Then, spread another ¼ cup of flour onto your counter. Also, sprinkle some of the flour on top of the dough so your hands don’t stick too much.

Keep turning and pushing until the dough becomes soft, doesn’t stick to the countertop easily, and can be formed into a boulle. I find that this takes about 10 minutes. It is okay if you do not use up all your reserved flour. Too much flour makes the bread dense and keeps the bread from fully rising.

Let it rise