Oatmeal Bread, Redone and Done Right

In case it did not come across convincingly in my original post about oatmeal bread back in January, I was not a big fan of the recipe I used for my first attempt at what is one of my favorite types of bread. As I noted back then, we eat *a lot* of peanut butter in our house and we've found that oatmeal bread is the perfect platform for a proper peanut butter and honey sandwich. The loaf I baked up in January, however, was not doing it for me. It was slightly dry, the crust was way too dark, and it didn't have that slightly-sweet flavor that I'm used to encountering in a proper loaf of oatmeal bread.

Thank goodness for second chances, or rather, different recipes. Buried in the same cookbook as the first recipe was one for sunflower oatmeal bread, which took the same basic ingredients of buttermilk, maple syrup, oats and bread flour and added honey, an egg, water and sunflowers. Cooked on the lightest crust setting, the recipe yielded the *exact* loaf that I had hoped for the first time around.

The bread was so tasty that I was inspired to take it beyond the basic PB&H and whipped up some mustard seed egg salad with fresh sprouts for a delicious sandwich.

*SUNFLOWER OATMEAL BREAD* Recipe from Beth Hensperger
Yields one 1.5 pound loaf

Ingredients

1/2 cup water

5/8 cup buttermilk

1 large egg

1.5 T butter, cut into small cubes

2 T honey

1 T maple syrup

2 1/2 cups bread flour

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 T gluten

1 1/2 t salt

2 t yeast

1/2 cup raw sunflowers, unsalted

Combine all ingredients, in the order listed, and bake on the basic bread cycle, programmed for a light crust. Simple as that, and delish!