My sister-in-law, Rachel, came up to stay with us last week. We had a great time! It probably wasn’t as fun to Rachel as it was to me considering we did about 6 hours worth of math (I’m very weird…I love math). But, good news…she’s going to ace algebra! 🙂

This is Rachel: Isn’t she just gorgeous (just turned 15)!

 

The bread reminded me of my vintage cookbooks that I’ve collected over the years…so I decided to make some of the photos look like it, too!

 

My favorite part of the week was getting to make bread.

Rachel suggested that she wanted to make a seed bread…chalked full of seeds. And boy, was that a good call!

It was amazing!

 

 

Spread some butter and jam on a slice…warm it in the oven. You talk about good!!!

All I can say is, Sous Chef Rachel, you are welcome in my kitchen any time! 🙂 Love you girl!

 

Irish Oatmeal Seed Bread

adapted from Cooking Lessons

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup steel-cut oats
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons flax seeds
• 2 tablespoons unsalted pumpkin seeds
• 2 tablespoons unsalted sunflower seeds plus 1 tablespoon for the top of the bread
• 1 1/2 cups light buttermilk plus 1 tablespoon for the top of the bread

How-To

1. Heat the oven to 425°F.
2. Set aside a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat sheet.
3. Whisk the whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, oats, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl until combined.
4. Add the butter and use a pastry blender to mix it until the butter is pea sized.
5. Stir in the flax seeds, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds into the dry ingredients.
6. Pour in the buttermilk.
7. Stir with a rubber spatula just until the mixture comes together; don’t overmix.
8. Use the spatula to form the dough into a round piece as best as possible. The dough will be quite sticky, so don’t fret if it is not a perfect round ball.
9. Turn the lump of dough onto the baking sheet. Dust your hands with a little flour and pat it into a 7-inch round, flat shape.
10. Brush the top of the loaf with the remaining buttermilk.
11. Sprinkle the reserved sunflower seeds over the top.
12. Bake for 10 minutes, then decrease the heat to 400°F.
13. Bake for an additional 15 to 20 minutes, or until the top is golden and the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it
14. Cool on a rack before slicing.

 

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