7 Grain Bread

Yet another recipe submitted by my friend Heather.  I give the bread SHE made a 5 of 5 stars, but mine was not nearly as good!  I do not have a bread maker so it takes several attempts at making the bread from scratch to get it right so I am posting this recipe exactly how she sent it to me (using the bread machine).  My family and friends still enjoyed the bread, but it was really dense and did not rise well; the flavor was still there though!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 c water
• 1/2 c Grape Nuts or other 7 grain cereal, like Kashi
• 1/2 c rolled oats, blended finely in a mini-food processor (or oat flour)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 T molasses
• 3 T olive oil
• 3 1/2 c bread flour
• 1 pack active dry yeast

I mix all these together in a bread maker first on the dough setting, but if you don't have one, you can start by hand: Heat water to 130 degrees, add to cereal in large bowl, let stand 10 mins. Add yeast, oat flour, salts, molasses, and oil. Beat well. Cover, let stand 15 mins. Slowly add bread flour, and beat until smooth. Turn dough out onto lightly floured board and knead until smooth and springy about 5mins, adding flour if necessary. Grease another bowl, place dough in bowl and roll until greased on all sides. Cover and let rise in warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Here, either take dough out of bread maker or bowl and do the following (or you can just bake whole thing start to finish in bread maker and skip dough cycle): Grease 9 x 5 inch loaf pan or 8 or 9 inch round cake pan. Turn dough onto lightly floured board. Punch dough down and shape it into loaf. Place with smooth side up into pan. Cover and let rise again in a warm place until almost doubled, about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake 25 to 30 mins, until loaf is golden. Remove from pan immediately and cool on rack.

Yield:  One loaf

Timing:  This is just bread so as soon as your little one has eaten grains with no issues and can gum foods, this is perfect.  I would say about 9 months

Difficulty:  5 out of 5; not using a bread machine makes this very time consuming, but I still think its worth it it's YUMMO!

Epicutie Rating:  YUMMY IN THE TUMMY--see right side of page for descriptions.
I had to make Little Joy stop eating this stuff.  She has taste buds like her Daddy.....BREAD :)  She used to hate bread now it is her best friend---go figure!