Granola Bread

I am on a mission! I am on a mission to find a whole wheat bread recipe that I like and can make without a bread machine. I tried one this last weekend and it turned out pretty good but it's not exactly what I'm looking for. I'll bring you along on my escapade if you care to read about it! I have two more recipes that I want to try. One if a french bread, but it's with white flour, so we'll see how it goes using wheat flour. The other is a recipe is from my cousin Leah, which I am the most excited to try, but I don't have all the ingredients for it so I'll have to wait until after my next shopping trip to make it. Yes, I do only live 3 minutes from the grocery store but I hate shopping, especially grocery shopping so I avoid going at all costs, so I will wait until this weekend to get all my ingredients.

The bread I tried this past weekend is called Granola Bread. It is actually very yummy bread but it's more of a breakfast bread with butter and jam, not a sandwich bread. It's worth a try if you are looking for a new bread. Plus, if you make this and go to buy your orange marmalade at Super One you get this really awesome cute jar to hopefully use for canning in the future...

Alright so it's not the only reason to make the bread, it truly is yummy!

Granola Bread
2 Tablespoons Butter
1/2 Cup Orange Marmalade
1/4 Cup Molasses

1 Cup Granola
2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Cup Wheat Germ
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Packages active dry yeast

4 Cups all -purpose flour

Put 2 cups water and first 3 ingredients in pan over low heat until very warm. Stir in next 5 ingredients and 1 cup flour. Pour heated mix over the remaining flour mixture. Beat at medium speed, scraping side of bowl occasionally for 3 minutes (Note: DO NOT USE A HAND MIXER!!! I Repeat, DO NOT USE A HAND MIXER, I will explain in a later post). Turn out on floured board and knead (the recipe didn't say for how long, I did 7 minutes). Flatten to rectangle (FYI rather hard to flatten to a rectangle but if you make it big enough you don't have to roll it out like it says later, you can just cut it in half). Let dough rise in a warm place free from draft for 1 hour 15 min until double in size. Punch down and divide in 2 loaves by rolling dough from short end of rectangle. Seal ends and put in loaf pans. Let rise another 1 hour 30 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.

It's like a whole wheat bread with a bit more flavor and when you get a piece of the orange marmalade peal it's a little zing of sweetness. Tastes great toasted with butter (and if you like jam, but I'm not a jam type of girl, I just like butter on my toast).