Pumpkin shaped breads are all over my feed. If you look back on my feed, I made pumpkin challah dinner rolls a while ago. You too can make a beautiful pumpkin-shaped loaf of bread for the holidays. It’s a fun project to do with the kids.

This pumpkin shaped oatmeal honey whole wheat bread looks good and tastes even better. It’s bakes up with a soft sweet crumb. I suggest serving it with some honey butter for slathering. 

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Oatmeal Honey Whole Wheat Bread

Course Side Dish

Ingredients

• 1 cup boiling water
• ½ cup rolled oats
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ½ tsp honey
• 2 tbsp butter, softened
• 1¼ tsp salt
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• ¾ cup whole wheat flour
• ½ tbsp active dry yeast

For Shaping

• parchment paper
• kitchen twine cut, 4 x 20-22” length

Instructions

• In a large mixing bowl, combine the boiling water, oats, sugar, honey, butter and salt. Stir and let cool to 100°F (about 10 to 15 minutes). 

• Activate the yeast in ⅓ cup lukewarm water with 1 tbsp sugar for 8-10 minutes until bubbly.
• Add the yeast and flours to the oatmeal mixture, stirring to form a rough dough. Knead for about 10 minutes by hand until the dough is smooth.

  
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover and allow the dough to rise for 1 hour in a warm spot.
• Punch down dough and shape into a boule, cover and let it rest for another hour. 

• While the dough is proofing, cut a piece of parchment paper that will fit in the dutch oven. Cut 4 pieces of kitchen twine, measuring approximately 20-22” in length and spray with cooking spray or oil (this will help the twine from sticking to the dough). Lay them on top of the parchment paper to create a criss cross pattern.
• Preheat the oven to 350°F.
• Once proofed carefully transfer the dough on top of the prepared twine. Tie the twines loosely and cut off the excess. Adjust the twine so that the sections are approximately equal in size.
• Score each section of the bread in the pattern that you like. Transfer the dough with the parchment into the dutch oven, cover and bake for 40 minutes. Remove lid and bake for another 10 minutes until the top is golden. 


  Remove from oven, place on cooling rack and cut off twine.