Whole Wheat Oatmeal Quick Bread

I love homemade bread. Unfortunately, I kind of suck at making it. I’ve made both yeasted and quick breads and they always seem to have this uncanny habit of either not cooking all the way through (gummy on the inside, burnt on the outside) or just tasting like crap. Needless to say, I’ve been frustrated.

I even made bread yesterday and was going to blog about it…but it sucked. A lot.

However, today something magical happened. I toyed around with a new quick bread recipe and it actually turned out alright! Scratch that – BETTER than alright. It’s so yummy, in fact, that I’ve had to move it into the downstairs fridge to avoid from eating the whole thing.

I’m kind of in love with this recipe now. And this bread. Today, after countless homemade bread fails, I finally had a bread win!

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Quick Bread
(Adapted from Eating Well’s Honey Oat Quick Bread)
The buttermilk in this recipe gives it a really nice, almost biscuit-like quality. It’s brown and crumbly on the outsides, and soft and moist on the inside. However, make sure you cut big slices – it’s almost too crumbly for thin ones.

Ingredients:

1 cup quick-cooking (not instant) oats
1 1/3 cups whole-wheat bread flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons brown sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk

additional flour
additional oats (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Coat a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray (or the oil of your choice). Sprinkle about a tablespoon of flour into the pan and tip the pan back and forth to coat the sides and bottom with it.

Thoroughly stir together oats, flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.

Whisk the egg, yogurt, oil, sugar and buttermilk in a medium bowl until well blended.
Add the yogurt mixture into the flour mixture and stir until just combined (don’t over mix). Scrape the batter into the pan, spreading evenly to the edges. Sprinkle oats over the top.

Bake the loaf for about 40 to 50 minutes (until well browned on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean). Let stand in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a table knife around and under the loaf to loosen it and turn it out onto the rack. Let cool until barely warm, about 45 minutes.

*Note: Because there aren’t any preservatives and such in the bread, it will keep longer if you store it in the refrigerator.


ENJOY! It makes great toast…or you can just have it plain with butter. That’s what happened to most of mine.