RECIPE: Honey-Oatmeal-Bread w/ Sunflower Seeds (in the bread machine)

I've been in a bread-making kind of mood lately; really, just a cooking kind of mood, trying out some new things here and there, but the thing I've had the most success with is the bread. Especially this recipe that I kind of put together myself, with the help of the little cookbook that came with my bread maker.

The bread, pictured on the left with that loaf of brioche I rescued last week, is made with white flour and includes oatmeal, honey and sunflower seeds, which makes it so delicious as a sandwich bread - I can highly recommend it with sliced turkey and mayo, although I really need a sliced ripe tomato to be completely certain.

This makes a nice little one-and-a-half pound loaf, so if you have a smaller bread machine that only makes one pound loaves, beware: you will have a dreadful mess to clean up. If you'd like more bread from the recipe and your machine can handle the volume, double the recipe and set your bread maker on the Dough option; take it out and put in in your own two bread pans and allow it to do its final proofing on your kitchen counter until the dough has doubled in size. Bake it at 350 degree for around forty minutes. Keep your eye and nose on it.

Honey-Oatmeal Bread with Sunflower Seeds (bread machine)

Ingredients:

7 1/2 ounces milk (7 ounces + 1 tablespoon), warmed to 90^o - 100^o
3 tablespoons honey
2 cups bread flour
1 cup old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons cold butter, cut into four chunks
2 teaspoons active dry yeast OR 1 1/2 teaspoons fast rise yeast

1/4 cup sunflower seeds (salted or unsalted, your pref)*

Directions:

Place ingredients in bread machine's baking pan in the order in which they're listed, placing the chunks of cold butter at each corner of the pan. Set the machine to your selected choices and go read your book. (Unless you're using the Dough setting, and then go do whatever you want to do until you need to deal with the dough.)

*My bread machine has a timer that lets me know when I can add things like sunflower seeds, nuts, raisins, etc. It comes after the first initial big stirring and this allows the added extras to not be ground up by the machine's strong kneading action. If your bread maker has such a setting, add the sunflower seeds. If it doesn't have this setting, just throw the sunflower seeds in with everything else.

Yield:

One 1 1/2 pound loaf