Honey Oat Beer Bread

Apparently I didn't get the baking bug out of my system last night, so tonight on the menu: Honey Oat Beer Bread. I have been wanting to bake more bread, so why not tonight? I chose this super easy recipe because I already had all of the ingredients and by the time I got home from the gym it was already 9:00. The workout tonight was 3.5 miles on the treadmill. After each mile I increased the incline and the speed until I wanted to die haha. My right knee has been hurting a little, so I didn't want to push myself too much.  I followed the run with 10 minutes of abs, 10 minutes of arms, and 20 minutes of legs. The gym was pretty empty so another girl put American Idol on the TV, which I was loving. At the very end of my workout I could tell about 6 guys were dying to watch opening season baseball. Finally, one of them changed the channel so I that was my signal to head back upstairs to do some baking.

Like I said, this bread is super easy and only has a few ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1 tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs honey
1 (12 fl oz) bottle beer
1/8 cup melted butter.

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375* and grease a 5x9 loaf pan.
2. Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl and drizzle the honey on top.
3. Add the beer and mix until everything is well incorporated. I used Miller Light because that is all we had in the fridge (classy I know...).
4. Pour batter into the loaf pan and top with the melted butter (no waiting time for the dough to rise) and bake for at least 35 minutes.
5. With about 10 minutes left, I added some toasted oats and a drizzle of honey on top of the bread.

With 10 minutes left to go

There are few things more comforting than fresh baked bread.The whole apartment smelled like honey toasted goodness by the time I pulled the bread out of the oven. If I had put a little more effort into it, I would have made some honey butter to go with the bread. Oh well, maybe next time. It was still delicious without the butter and I loved how the outside got nice and crispy while the inside was soft and moist. The touch of sweetness satisfied my nightly craving and will make a great breakfast tomorrow with a banana or some jelly.

Beautiful