Oat Woes

What do with all these oats? Oat bread! I grabbed the recipe from Quaker's website. The bread looks sad and collapsed with a hard crust because 1. I overproofed the bread and it sank 2. I added steam (forgot it's only if you want a super hard crusty shell, like for French bread). The bread tasted great, I'll try the recipe again without my boo boos.

Quaker's Best Oatmeal Bread - By Hand

Ingredients
5-3/4 to 6-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2-1/2 cups Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Two 1/4-ounce packages (about 4-1/2 teaspoons) quick-rising yeast
2-1/2 teaspoons salt
1-1/2 cups water
1-1/4 cups low-fat milk
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) margarine or butter


Preparation
In large bowl, combine 3 cups flour, oats, sugar, yeast and salt; mix well. In small saucepan, heat water, milk and margarine until very warm (120ºF to 130ºF). Add to flour mixture. Blend on low speed of electric mixer until dry ingredients are moistened. Increase to medium speed; beat 3 minutes. By hand, gradually stir in enough remaining flour to make a stiff dough.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface. Knead 5 to 8 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Shape dough into ball; place in greased bowl, turning once. Cover; let rise in warm place 30 minutes or until doubled in size.

Punch down dough. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Divide dough in half; shape to form loaves. Place in two greased 8 x 4 or 9 x 5-inch loaf pans. Cover; let rise in warm place 15 minutes or until nearly doubled in size.

Heat oven to 375ºF. Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until dark golden brown. Remove from pans to wire rack. Cool completely before slicing.

Cook’s Notes
If desired, brush tops of loaves lightly with melted margerine or butter and spinkle with additional oats after placing in pans.

Yield
2 LOAVES (32 SERVINGS)

Nutrition Information
1/32 of recipe