Honey Oat Bread recipe made with part whole wheat flour, honey, milk and oats. It’s one of my favorite homemade bread recipes!
Recipe Ingredients for Honey Oat Bread
Here’s what you’ll need to make this bread:
–3 cups all-purpose flour (I used half whole wheat flour)
–3/4 cups oats (either instant or old fashioned)
–1 TBSP instant yeast
–1 cup milk
–1/4 cup lukewarm water
–2 tablespoons butter
–1/4 cup honey
Toppings:
- 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons honey, warmed
- 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons oats
HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE HONEY OAT BREAD
If you’ve never made bread before, here is the basic formula for making your own at home. It really is an easy process and you’ll be thrilled with the results. Plus your entire house will smell like freshly baked bread which is amazing.
STEP 1: COMBINE DRY INGREDIENTS
In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the flour, oats, yeast, and salt. Set aside.
STEP 2: COMBINE LIQUID INGREDIENTS
In a small bowl, or a two cup measuring cup, warm the milk so that it’s hot enough to melt the butter, but not boiling. Add the butter, stirring until melted, then stir in the water and honey.
STEP 3: MIX & KNEAD THE BREAD
Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture, mixing with a dough hook until it just comes together to form a dough. Knead in the mixer, with the dough hook attachment, for 7-10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic (if you’re making this recipe by hand, the dough will be very sticky at first; flour your hands and work surface generously and be patient). If the dough is still very wet and sticky after 5 minutes of kneading, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough is barely tacky. If the dough is too dry, add water, 1 teaspoon (5 ml) at a time, to soften it up.
STEP 4: FIRST RISE
Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover, and allow to rise until doubled, about 1/2 to 1 hour.
STEP 5: PUNCH DOUGH AND SHAPE IT
Once doubled, place the dough on a clean, dry work surface. If the dough is too sticky, lightly flour the surface before continuing. With your fingers, flatten the dough into a 9 by 12-inch rectangle. Tightly roll the dough, tucking the ends as needed, into a loaf. Place the shaped dough into a 9×5-inch loaf pan and brush the top with the warmed honey and sprinkle with the oats. Allow loaf to rise in a slightly warm location until doubled, about 1/2 hour. (It’s winter so I find my bread rises best in the oven- I turn the oven on 350 for a minute or two, then turn it off. Place loaf on the oven rack with the light on.)
STEP 6: SECOND RISE
When dough has doubled, preheat oven to 350 degrees (180 C). I just leave the dough in the oven while preheating.
STEP 7: BAKE THE BREAD
Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until the bread is deep golden brown and the internal temperature is about 190 degrees. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely before serving.
I use a digital cooking thermometer near the end of the baking time to make sure the bread is fully cooked. Fully cooked bread will be 190-200 degrees F. Bread recipes that include milk will need to cook until 200 degrees. My all-time favorite cooking thermometer is the Thermapen. It’s super fast and incredibly durable. Another great thermometer is the ThermoPop which is a more basic version that works just as well!
STEP 8: COOL THE BREAD
Let the bread cool in the pan it cooked in so it can maintain it’s shape. Once it’s cooled you can transfer it to a cooling rack.
I prefer to cool it for at least 20 minutes. If you try and slice it while it’s too hot, the loaf will get smashed- it’s a soft bread!
AVOID SUNKEN BREAD
The easiest and best way to avoid sunken bread is to use a cooking thermometer to check the inside of the loaf. Fully cooked bread will register 200°F on a thermometer. My all-time favorite thermometer is the Thermapen. It’s super fast and incredibly durable. Another great cooking thermometer is the ThermoPop which is a more basic version that works just as well!
Soft & Sweet Honey Oat Bread
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour can use half whole wheat flour
- 3/4 cups oats either instant or old fashioned
- 1 TBSP instant yeast
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 cup milk
- 1/4 cup lukewarm water
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/4 cup honey
Toppings:
- 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons honey warmed
- 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons oats
Instructions
- In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the flour, oats, yeast, and salt.
- In a small bowl, or a two cup measuring cup, warm the milk so that it’s hot enough to melt the butter, but not boiling. Add the butter, stirring until melted, then stir in the water and honey.
- Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture, mixing with a dough hook until it just comes together to form a dough. Knead in the mixer, with the dough hook attachment, for 7-10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic (if you’re making this recipe by hand, the dough will be very sticky at first; flour your hands and work surface generously and be patient). If the dough is still very wet and sticky after 5 minutes of kneading, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough is barely tacky. If the dough is too dry, add water, 1 teaspoon (5 ml) at a time, to soften it up.
- Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover, and allow to rise until doubled, about 1/2 to 1 hour.
- Once doubled, place the dough on a clean, dry work surface. If the dough is too sticky, lightly flour the surface before continuing. With your fingers, flatten the dough into a 9 by 12-inch rectangle. Tightly roll the dough, tucking the ends as needed, into a loaf. Place the shaped dough into a 9×5-inch loaf pan and brush the top with the warmed honey and sprinkle with the oats. Allow loaf to rise in a slightly warm location until doubled, about 1/2 hour. (It's winter so I find my bread rises best in the oven- I turn the oven on 350 for a minute or two, then turn it off. Place loaf on the oven rack with the light on. You can see my set-up in the picture below.)
- When dough has doubled, preheat oven to 350 degrees (180 C). (I just leave the dough in the oven while preheating.) Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until the bread is deep golden brown and the internal temperature is about 190 degrees. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely before serving.
Video
Nutrition
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How do you store homemade bread?
You’ll store bread in an airtight container. I bought bread bags off Amazon.
Best Bread Pan?
I bake a lot of bread and the pans I prefer are either ceramic, glass or cast iron. These pans will bake bread more evenly and release the bread more easily after baking. I don’t like using dark or nonstick pans because the bread cooks unevenly. It darkens on the outside before the bread is cooked on the inside, so the coloring is uneven. Read more about which bread pan is the best here!
Can I use raw honey?
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Candace says
Can I subsitute maple syrup instead of honey? If so, how do I adjust the water amount?
C. Roman says
BEAUTIFUL!!! I had been looking for an oatmeal bread recipe because I am sensitive to whole wheat and this beautiful loaf delivered on all counts. I only used 1 tsp yeast and added about 30 minutes to each rise. I used the Pyrex glass 8 x 4 loaf pan. The rise and crumb were perfection. The taste and texture are amazing. Your recipe is a homerun in my book.
Jane says
Can I use whey in place of the water and milk?
Jessica says
I can’t imagine why that wouldn’t work, Jane! I say go for it!
Esther says
Can I leave the dough outside all night long ?
Nicole says
I cannot recommend allowing the dough to rest at room temperature for overnight. The yeast will overproof and give you very dense results. If you want to make the dough and let it rest overnight, stop at the second rise and instead of baking, keep it in the baking pan loosely covered in greased plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for up to 8 hours. in the morning place it on the counter while the oven preheats and then bake as directed.
Joanna says
This is great we love this bread. Can it be made in a breadmaker? I’d like to give it a try.
Janice says
I recently made thisbread but mine came out to be dense and not light in texture. I followed the recipe exactly but do not know what I did wrong.Can you help.The taste was spot on but not the texture.
Ashley says
Same I even tried twice
Spirit Hoffman says
Everyone measures flour differently by the cup which can cause a whole host of disappointing results that aren’t your fault… including dense loaves. I would always look for recipes measured in grams… a scale is worth it’s weight in gold and the best way to get a wonderful loaf of bread every time. Trying to convert a cup measured recipe to grams doesn’t work well either.
Josie Poolook says
Making these today! They look so yummy! Hopefully I will get back & post how they turned out. Thank you for this recipe.
Mike says
So this is ‘oat’ bread when you have 3 cups wheat flour and 3/4 cup of oats???
Jessica says
Yep!
Vanessa Campbell says
First time making bread such as this. I’ve made banana bread, but thats different. Anyways, I was pleasantly surprised it came out well. Followed the directions. Couldn’t wait for the bread to cool before trying it. Honestly, I love baking and I don’t think I’ll be buying store bread anymore.
Fliss says
This is amazing! I think I overproofed mine, it turned out rather crumbly, but still soft and delicious! I also drizzled some extra honey over the loaf when it was fresh from the oven, which made it sticky but in my opinion even better. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe!
Alison says
That extra honey sounds perfect! Thank you for sharing!
Tana says
Can this be made the night before and placed in the fridge overnight?
Jessica says
Yes, you’ll just have to allow time for the dough to come back to room temp before baking or you might end up with a very small, dense loaf.
Dayne Conn says
This recipe is amazing! My family even agrees with me!
Shen says
Same with mine too. The texture is dense. 😞
Too Dense says
This bread turned out very dense and stodgy. It’s not due to dead yeast as I had good rises and proofed the yeast in warm milk beforehand. I suspect that it’s due to the oats within the dough. Wasted a lot of time and effort kneading it and was very disappointed with the result. Not recommended.
Kenny says
Nice light loaf, although dough was quite sticky. Baked them in a smaller pan for a higher loaf. Won a blue ribbon at a county fair on this, will be entering it in the state fair, too.
Gale says
Can I double recipe to make 2 loaves?
Alison says
Yes!
Jenooi says
I’ll be trying it. Is this recipe suitable for bread maker? Thank you.
Nicole says
While I have not tried it, you should be able to make this recipe in your bread maker by placing the ingredients into your bread maker in the order listed on your owner’s manual. Select “dough setting” and then place it into a prepared bread pan and oven bake it or allow the bread maker to cook it completely depending on what you would prefer.
Michelle says
Brushed the warm honey on top exactly where recipe stated and the loaf has only been in the oven 10 minutes Abd is already completely black on top. It’s unfortunate bc it was a waste of ingredients and time, and otherwise may have turned out okay.
Jessica says
Is your oven rack really close to the heating element? Do you bake things often? Crazy that something would burn in 10 minutes. At any rate, something didn’t go right at all, sorry about that!
Janel says
Love it! Never made bread before and worked perfectly. We all enjoyed it. Thank you!!
Alison says
So happy to hear you all enjoyed this one Janel!
Fundy says
Could I make this with just whole wheat flower? Also if it’s not too much work could you supply the weight measurements of the ingredients? Thanks so much for sharing this amazing recipe!
Nicole says
I havent tried this recipe with just whole wheat but I do know that whole wheat would result in more moisture being needed in the dough so it will be a bit of a trial and error to get it right.
Sandra Perez says
Haven’t made this recipe just yet. But can I freeze the bread once it’s cooled?
Nicole says
Yes, after the bread has been baked and cooled completely wrap it well in plastic wrap and then store it in an airtight container or gallon sized Ziploc baggie (the added wrapping helps to prevent freezer burn.) Freeze for up to 3 months.
Debora says
I have been baking bread for a long time and I just loved this bread.
Nicole says
We’re glad to hear it 🙂
Lynda says
I made this recipe for the first time today, and it was an EPIC FAIL! So disappointed. I’ll freely admit, although I’ve been baking for decades, bread has always intimidated me. This attempt was only the second or third time I’ve tried my hand at bread. I chose this recipe because I liked the ingredients and it promoted the use of my Kitchen Aid for kneading. I followed your recipe faithfully, but the bread dough was slow to rise for both rises, so I gave it extra time. I feel like brushing the top crust with honey retarded the second rise also. Plus, the honey dripped down to the bottom of the pan and burned. Overall, the bread is tasty, but heavy, and the crust is tough and burned in places. Any recommendations for improvement?
Nicole says
not rising properly and turning out heavy can be a result of you not properly kneading the bread. Another issue could have been bad yeast or poorly activated yeast (meaning that the liquids weren’t warm enough or were too hot to get the yeast to work properly.) Youre looking for dough that’s kneaded to the point that it is smooth and elastic and when you poke it with your finer it springs back and fills in that gap. the liquids used should also be about 110 degrees F.