SUPER SIMPLE OATMEAL SODA BREAD

Super Simple Oatmeal Soda Bread image

Whip these few simple ingredients together and you'll have fresh hot bread in under an hour! No yeast or rising involved. This is a dense chewy type of bread with a wonderful hard-like crunchy seeded crust. The caraway seeds (if you have it) gives it such a wonderful flavor. I've been having it for breakfast all week toated and...

Provided by kim *

Number Of Ingredients 6

Ingredients

2 c whole oats (or kamut flakes work very well too)
2 1/4 c all purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp fine grain sea salt
1 3/4 c buttermilk (plus 2 tbsp for brushing)
2 Tbsp mixed seeds - seseme, caraway & poppy

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 400' with rack in middle of oven.
2. Butter & line a 9x5x3 loaf pan w/parchment paper & set aside.
3. Grind oats in a processor, blender or vita-mixer into a fine powder (Once ground it may yeild slightly less than 2 cups). Or just use oat flour if you have it on hand. (I sometimes add 2-3 T. of raw sugar to the flour to add a slight sweetness to the bread. Do whatever you prefer.
4. Sift the flours, baking soda & salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the flour & pour in the buttermilk. Stir just until everything comes together in a dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured counter top &b kneed for 30 seconds or so, just enough for the dough to come together into a cohesive slightly flattened ball w/out many cracks. If dough is on the dry side add a small splash of buttermilk.
5. Now ease dough evenly into prepared pan. Brush all over top & sides w/buttermilk & sprinkle generously w/mixed seeds. (I have also just sprinkled w/rolled oats when I was out of seeds & that was fine) But the seeds do give it a wonderful crunch & flavor.
6. Slice a few deep slashes across top of dough. Bake for about 30 minutes ... then quickly raise rack to top level so top gets nice & toasted. Bake another 20 min's or until a hard crust forms & bread is baked through. (Should feel very hard & sound hollow when you knock on it).
7. Carefully lift out of pan & cool on wire rack. Enjoy fresh from the oven w/slather of butter: )
8. PS .. This is such a flexible recipe. Feel free to make it your own by adding dried fruits, various seeds (pumpkin/flax, etc) and experimenting w/different flours, etc. All the variations I've tried on this have turned out good.