I got started on this bread making kick last year when I was determined to duplicate my mother-in-laws bread recipe that she’s been making for 40+ years! More commonly known in the family as “Gram Toast.” Everyone loves it. The only problem is there IS NO recipe! I had a picture of the recipe ingredients to make six loaves…by hand. The ingredients: About this much flour, water until it feels right, add oats until the texture is… Ummm-ok. So I didn’t want to hand knead the dough, and I didn’t want to make six loaves at a time since it’s just Ben and I. BUT I wanted to get the recipe as close as possible! And at the time I was feeling guilty for not using my bread machine that I HAD to have. After a lot of trial and error I came to the recipe below and it’s pretty darn good! It includes a mixture of white whole wheat flour and ground oats, and it’s pretty close to “Gram Toast!” I now use my bread machine weekly and it’s one of my favorite things in my kitchen! 

Recipe:

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

2 tablespoons honey

1 cup really warm water

2 cups ground oats

1.5 cups white whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons vital wheat gluten

1/4 cup coconut oil (or butter)

Instructions: Add yeast, honey and water to pan. Let them sit a couple minutes to get “foamy.” (I grind the oats during this time!) Add rest of ingredients to the bread machine as listed. Select dough cycle on your machine (1.5 hours). When dough cycle is finished transfer dough into greased bread pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

After 2 mins of mixing.

Ready to transfer to loaf pan.

Since this rises in the bread machine and gets transferred to a pan- making it look pretty is tricky!

A few notes about this recipe: Once dough is completely mixed in the machine it should feel smooth like a “babies bottom.” Check it throughout the first 20 mins.

If you use white flour instead of whole wheat you will only need to add about 2 tablespoons gluten.

Since you are using whole wheat flour and oats the bread will not rise quite as much as a normal white loaf – that’s ok. It will rise more as it bakes. Not every store stocks white whole wheat flour but if they carry King Arthur flour they probably have it! Regular wheat flour works fine too but white whole what flour has a lighter taste while still being whole wheat!

Grind your oats in your blender or food processor. I grind them so most are broken up but not all (see photo above).

 It’s the perfect bread for toast! Let me know what questions you have and I’d love to hear your feedback once you make this!