2 Hours 30 Minutes | Easy | Yields 1 Loaf of Love
My father ‘Fritz’ loved homemade bread! He learned in his mother’s kitchen and continued to please so many on holidays with loaves of love, as I call them. The smell as it is cooking, the melting butter on a warm piece right out of the oven and the AMAZING Toast graced with butter and cinnamon sugar are childhood memories I happily repeat over and over again.
INGREDIENTS
- 3 cups(sifted) Bread Flour
- 1 cup Rolled Oats
- 2 Tbl softened salted butter
- 1 1/4 Tsp salt
- 1/4 cup Dark Brown Sugar
- 1/4 cup Dark Maple Syrup
- 1 package Active Dry Yeast
- 1 1/4 cup whole milk (lukewarm)
Method
- Weigh your flour; or measure it by gently spooning it into a cup, then sweeping off any excess.
- Making the dough: A stand mixer comes in really handy for this part:
- Sift in 2 cups of flour
- Add in the remainder of dry ingredients reserving the leftover 1 cup of flour. Using mixer paddle attachment mix ingredients together well.
- Add in Dark Maple Syrup and Softened Butter. Mix again for 1 minute, scraping bowl and/or paddle if necessary to incorporate butter.
- Switch to dough hook attachment
- Turn mixer on to low and slowly add 3/4 cup of lukewarm milk, scraping bowl to incorporate all ingredients. Mix for 1 minute.
- Add remaining flour. Slowly add remaining lukewarm milk.
- Continue to knead dough for 5 minutes.
- Lightly grease large bowl
- Remove dough from mixer and place in bowl. (spray top of dough) lightly cover. (plastic wrap)
- Allow to rise for 1 hour. (Proofing Tips)
- Remove dough from bowl and turn out on lightly floured surface. Knead together by hand and turn into itself to form a log the width of your loaf pan.
- Lightly cover and place back in oven for 1 hour. (proofer)
- Remove from oven/proofer to countertop. Remove cover.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- When oven temp is ready place bread in center of oven.
- Bake for 20 minutes then remove carefully remove from oven. Brush top of loaf with topping mixture and return to oven.
- Bake an additional 15-20 minutes until top of golden brown.. Internal temp should reach 190 degrees.
- Remove from oven, crefully turn loaf out of pan and place on rack to cool.
- Allow bread to cool for atleast 10-15 minutes before slicing that first piece of heaven. After bread has completely cooled to room temp store in a sealed bag. If it lasts that long 🙂 this bread can be stored at room temperature for several days. It can be frozen if you wish to have a loaf on hand for later.
