Honey Oat Bread: A Baking Breakthrough

I just watched the Pioneer Woman's new cooking show on the Food Network. Meredith and I, texting all the while, decided that PW is much better as a blogger than as a Food Network actress.

If you have not discovered the Pioneer Woman's blog, click here. I particularly enjoy her "Confessions" section of the blog, because she is always writing about her ridiculous basset hounds... and I'm a sucker for anything about ridiculous dogs.

(I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I am one of those lame dog people. Well... I am. Back off. Dog people unite.)

Anyway, watching the Pioneer Woman's show put me in the mood to blog. So I flipped through the pictures on my phone and realized that I have SO MANY pictures of meals that I made this month that I have not shared with you! Why is that? Oh yeah... because I was supposed to be making recipes from Clean Eating but was covertly being unfaithful to the September Challenge. Sigh....

This recipe is from EatingWell. Shocker. With all the publicity I give them on this blog, I think they should be paying me.

Traditionally I have been a complete failure when it comes to baking. Cookies, cakes, breads, muffins... all of this homemade goodness has been unavailable to me because I fail every time. It all either comes out flat and hard or spongy and chewy. Eww. Out of fear of failure, I simply avoid baking all together.

Although still intimidated, I have recently been dipping my toe in the baking world. I'm craving a challenge. Plus, we should not let fear of failure dictate our life choices. That’s just a terrible way to live.

I made this delightful honey oat bread for small group… and because I was afraid it wouldn’t turn out, I brought along some store-bought bread, too.

It’s soooo good and soooo easy, which is good news for a baking novice like me. It’s also healthy! Which you know makes me happy. It is sweetened with raw honey, kept moist with yogurt, and uses half whole wheat flour, half all purpose flour. And it came out beautifully!

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE

A tip I learned from my friend, Hannah: Spoon your flour into your measuring cup rather than scooping it out of the bin. This keeps the flour nice and light and airy. She said something about how the “scooping” method packs the flour down too much and actually gives you more flour than you want.

A tip I learned from Meredith: Your eggs should be at room temperature when you are baking. I don’t know why. I don’t have any baking wisdom on this one. Just do it.
Yum yum yum. Everyone loved it and I was so pleased.

Oh, p.s.
Nobody touched the store-bought stuff :)