How is everyone doing? With the new state of affairs, somehow everyone has turned into a bread baker.  I’m not a bread baker myself, but all the photos on social media made me want to do the same.  Flour is actually scarce, though, and I had only a few cups left in my cupboard.  I did make too much oatmeal one day, though, and leftover oats just don’t look that appealing.  I am always a fan of using any leftover food to reduce food waste, and even more so now, when I am trying to minimize trips to the grocery.  So I searched for a recipe for leftover oatmeal bread, and was enticed by this one.  It looked simple enough for a beginner, used leftover oatmeal, and most importantly, needed a minimum of flour.  It was so easy and so delicious– incredibly moist and tender.  It will be a go to whenever I have leftover oatmeal, and also time at home, which is one of the gifts of sheltering in place.  Try this and let me know how it goes! And if you have other recipes to use up leftover oatmeal, please leave those in the comments.  Thank you, and happy baking!

Easy Leftover Oatmeal Bread

Adapted from Kitchen Mage

The main change I made in the recipe was to use all-purpose, rather than bread flour, because that’s what I had.  I really liked how tender the bread came out, so I’ll continue to use all-purpose when I bake this again, but you could certainly use bread flour if that’s what you have.  And for oats, I recommend Bob’s Red Mill.

Makes: 1 loaf

Ingredients
1 cup leftover cooked oatmeal
1 cup water
1 tsp instant yeast
2T sugar
2-1/2 to 3 cups AP flour, plus more for flouring surface
1 tsp salt
butter or oil for greasing
raw rolled oats for garnishing

Technique
1. Put leftover oatmeal and water to a medium mixing bowl and stir and mash to break up the oatmeal so that it’s no longer in clumps. Then stir in yeast and allow to sit on counter for 15 minutes.

2. Add sugar and 1 cup of flour and stir with a wooden spoon until you have a very wet dough. Add additional flour a little at a time until the dough starts to come together. Depending on how much water you had in your oatmeal and humidity, you may need as little as 2 cups, but as much as 3 cups. Once the dough is holding itself together in a ball, turn out onto a well-floured surface.
3. Flour your hands and knead the dough for 2-3 minutes, sprinkling on more flour, as needed. Cover with a damp towel or oiled plastic wrap and allow to rest for 20 minutes.
4. After resting, sprinkle with the salt and knead for another 3-5 minutes, again adding more flour as needed to keep it from sticking too much to your surface or hands. (But don’t add too much, or your loaf will be too dense.) The dough should hold together, but will be very loose and still be on the sticky side.
5. Place the dough in a bowl greased with some butter or oil, cover, and allow to rise until it has doubled in size. This will take about 30 minutes, more or less.
6. Turn the dough out again onto the floured surface and punch it down, then shape into a loaf and allow to double in size again. I used a greased 9 inch cake pan to make my round loaf; you could use a loaf pan too.

7. Preheat oven to 375 F while the dough is doing its final rise. When it’s ready, sprinkle some raw oats on top. Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown (I like to rotate it halfway through for even browning.) Check for doneness by knocking on the bottom; it should sound hollow. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing.

Thank you for coming by! If you’re interested in tips to cook from your pantry, see my resource guide.  Stay well!