Cindy's Vermont Oatmeal Maple-Honey Bread

Cindy Fountain, team coordinator at our Baker's Store here in Norwich, bakes bread regularly for her husband, Norm, and kids Asa and Tess. She's always been a fan of the added flavor active dry yeast brings to bread (as opposed to instant yeast), but allows that our instant active dry yeast is just as flavorful, but cuts out the proofing step -- a time-saving boon for a busy mom like Cindy!

2 cups boiling water
1 cup thick oat flakes (rolled oats)
1/2 cup maple sugar (or brown sugar)
1/2 teaspoon maple flavor (optional)
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon instant active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups King Arthur 100% White Whole Wheat Flour
4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
In a large mixing bowl, combine the water, oats, maple or brown sugar, maple flavor (if you're using it), honey, butter, salt and cinnamon. Let cool to lukewarm.

Add the yeast and flours, stirring to form a rough dough. Knead (about 10 minutes by hand, 5 to 7 minutes by machine) until the dough is smooth and satiny. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the dough to rise for 1 hour.

Divide the dough in half, and shape each half into a loaf. Place the loaves in two greased 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch bread pans. Cover the pans with lightly greased plastic wrap (or an acrylic dough cover), and allow the loaves to rise till they've crowned about 1 inch over the rim of the pan, about 1 hour.

Bake the loaves in a preheated 360°F oven for 33 minutes.* Remove them from the oven when they're golden brown, and the interior registers 190°F on an instant-read thermometer. Yield: 2 sandwich loaves.

*If your oven can't be set at 360°F, set it at 350°F and bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes.