I have a confession to make. . . I created my Oat and Sunflower Seed Yeast Loaf recipe to use up some sunflower seeds that I had in a jar in my spice cabinet. Is that crazy or what? I know the majority of my post lately have been recipes for bread but every time I reached into my spice cabinet, that little jar of sunflower seeds were taunting me, “Use us, use us!” So this morning was as good a time as any to put them in my cast iron skillet and toast them up and use them as a topping for my yeast bread. Just the sunflower seeds alone would have been boring so I decided to add some oats since they were on my hit list too ;-). Since I was topping the bread with the oats, I thought adapting my Easy Yeast Bread to include some ground oats would give it a nice flavor. I think this adaptation turned out great. Hope you enjoy! Afiyet olsun!
- 1½ Cups Warm Water at 110 degrees (if you don't have a thermometer, put your pinkie if you can't keep your pinkie finger in the water then it is too hot and will kill your yeast)
- 2¼ Teaspoons Active Dry Yeast
- 1 Tablespoon Honey
- 3 Cups Flour
- ½ Cup Oat Flour, (I used my spice mill to grind the oats into a flour. If you don't have any oat flour you can just increase the regular flour by ½ cup making the total flour 3½ cups.)
- 1½ Teaspoon Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil, plus a drizzle for the bowl
- ¼ Cup Oats
- ¼ Cup Sunflower Seeds, Toasted
- 2-3 Tablespoons softened butter
- 2 Tablespoons honey
- Sprinkle the Yeast over the water.
- Stir in the honey and place in a warm area AWAY from draught for 5-10 minutes until the yeast blooms.
- Meanwhile, place the flour and oat flour into a large mixing bowl.
- Stir in the salt.
- Pour the yeast mixture and olive oil into the flour and mix well with your hands.
- Knead the dough for 6-8 minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic.
- Drizzle the olive oil in the bowl and make sure the dough is covered.
- Cover with a slightly damp towel and place in a warm area. Again this should be AWAY from draught. Leave until dough is doubled in size or about 30 minutes.
- Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a small pan filled half-way with water in the oven to produce steam. This will help the dough rise up while baking.
- Push the air out of the dough and shape into a loaf.
- Place in to a loaf pan and cover with the damp towel.
- Mix the honey and softened butter.
- After 15 minutes, remove the towel and brush the top of the loaf with the honey butter mixture.
- Sprinkle on the oats and sunflower seeds.
- Place the dough into the oven and bake 20 -25 minutes or until golden.
- Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then remove from the pan and cool on a cooling rack until completely cooled.
