Oatmeal Molasses Bread Recipe

A wonderful dark crusty fragrant bread from the Rabbit Hill Inn in Vermont.

Course Bread

Cuisine American

Prep Time 3

Cook Time 30

Total Time 3 30

Servings slices

Calories 68kcal

Author Lea Ann Brown

Ingredients

2 cups boiling water
1 cup quick-cooking oatmeal
1 ½ tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
½ cup warm water 110 degrees
½ cup molasses blackstrap preferably
2 teaspoons salt
4 ½ - 5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Instructions

In a Kitchen-aid Mixing bowl, pour the boiling water over the oatmeal and butter. Let stand 30 minutes.
In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the lukewarm water and let stand to dissolve. 5 - 10 minutes. Add the yeast, molasses and salt to the oatmeal mixture and stir well.
Using your Kitchen-aid paddle attachment, on low, stir in enough of the flour to make a kneadable dough 1 cup at a time, so that is still somewhat sticky to the touch.
Switching to the dough hook, knead until smooth and elastic on power 4. About 7 minutes. Keep adding pinches of flour until the bread just starts to clean the side of the bowl. For me, I usually end up adding about 6 - 8 pinches. The dough will still be sticky.
Transfer dough to a large oiled bowl. Turn dough to coat and cover with a clean cloth and let rise until doubled. About 1 ½ hours.
Oil two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans. Punch the dough down and divide it in half. Shape the dough into loaves and place them in the prepared pans. Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk. About 40 minutes.
About 30 minutes into the final rise, preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Bake the bread until crusty, about 30 minutes or until an instant read thermometer inserted into the center of each loaf reads 190 degrees. Turn the loaves out of the pans onto a wire rack. Let cool.

Notes

The original recipe calls for Blackstrap molasses, which will give the bread a potent bittersweet flavor. I've used regular molasses and find I like the flavor better.

If rapid rise yeast is all you have, use 25% less than this recipe call for. Just add it to the water and stir, no need to let it prove for 10 minutes. Just add it to the dry ingredients and proceed with the recipe.

This recipe works with a somewhat sticky dough. Using a bench knife makes easy work when dividing the dough to place into the bread pans for its second rise.

Nutrition