Whole Wheat and Honey Oatmeal Bread

This bread is baking right now as I sit here and type this, and the whole house is warm and smells of fresh sweet goodness. I don't make bread often because there is a lot of work, and time involved. Who really has 3 hours in a day to dedicate just to making sure bread turns out!? It's a treat when I do bake it and we really enjoy it. I'm serving it for dinner tonight with some homemade butternut squash soup that my friend Dina made for me. Mmmm... it will be a wonderful flavor combination.

This recipe makes 2 large loaves. I am pretty sure that one can be frozen for future use, although I've never actually had any left to freeze!

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of water
1/3 cup of honey
1/3 cup of unsalted butter
3 cups of all purpose flour
2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
1 cup of quick cooking oats
2 packages of active dry yeast
2 eggs
1 egg whites

Place water in a pan on the stove, heat on low. Add the honey and whisk until dissolved.
Add butter and melt. Take a kitchen thermometer and check temperature periodically until it reaches 130F. Once it reaches that temperature remove from heat.

In the bowl of a mixer, place the whole wheat flour and 2 cups of all purpose flour (reserving 1 cup for later).
Add the yeast and salt, stirring slowly on lowest level for a few seconds until well combine. Stop the mixer, and add half of the warm wet ingredients, stir again until combined, then add 1 egg. Stop mixer again, and add the remaining egg and egg white,  and remaining cup of flour. Stir on level 2 and then add remaining wet mixture. Mix until the dough begins to pulls away from the bowl.

Take dough, form into a ball and put it into a well oiled (I used Olive Oil) bowl. Cover with towel and place inside your oven (Do NOT turn the oven on!)

Let rise for 1 hour

Pull out of oven, break into two and roll with a rolling pin making sure to release the air from the dough.
Roll into 1 loaves and place in well oiled bread pans.

Put back into oven, covered loosely with a towel and let rise for 1 more hour.

Pull bread out of oven after the hour. Preheat oven to 380 degrees.

Bake loaves at the same time, in oven for 40 minutes. Check after 30 minutes to make sure they are not burning.

Warm delicious bread, hot out of the oven!

Wait 30 minutes before slicing in!