Saturday, October 31, 2009

Oatmeal Wheat Bread (pp 671-672)

Some cliches exist for a reason, this is one of them: there's nothing better than a loaf of bread out of the oven. It 'smells up the place real good', it tastes great, and it's still warm.

Meez:
You'll need 2C whole milk, 1C old-fashioned rolled oats (I thought these would be harder to find, they weren't), warm water to activate your 2Tb yeast, 1/2C honey, 1/2 stick melted butter, 2C whole wheat flour (called for stone-ground, I just used regular, King Arthur to be specific), 2C unbleached AP flour, 1 t salt, and 1 lg egg beaten w/1 t water to make a wash.

Procedure:
Heat up the milk, add the oatmeal to hydrate. Stir your warm water and yeast together, add 1 t honey. Let stand 'til foamy.  stir together yeast mix with butter and the rest of the honey, add to oatmeal. In a large bowl, mix the whole wheat flour, 1 1/2 c AP flour, and the salt. Add in the oatmeal-honey-yeast mix, stirring until you've got a basic dough. Turn out onto a floured surface and work the dough, adding more flour until it is only slightly sticky. Shape this into a ball and put it in an oiled bowl to rise and double at room temp for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. I put mine in the fridge overnight. Butter 2 loaf pans. Split the dough in half and shape them both into basic loaf shapes. Put them in the pans, seam side down. Cover with a towel (the book says no to terry cloth but that's what I use in the kitchen and no problems there) and let rise for about an hour or until doubled. Preheat the oven to 375. LIGHTLY brush the tops of the loaves with the egg wash. Don't overdo it or it'll run down the sides and you'll have some sticking issues (one of my loaves got shredded due to this). Sprinke lightly with some oats.
Doughy goodness

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Depan them and let them cool on a rack.
Loafy goodness



So, how was it?
This was a good, solid loaf. It also toasted up nicely.

What did you learn?
The egg-wash thing, don't overdo it. Egg proteins are basically like glue. They'll grab on and stick to the pan.

Recommend it?
Indeed. This is a good loaf to try. I'd make it again.

2 comments:

  1. This came out perfect for a late fall day - thanks for the motivation to make it. I paired it with this soup: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spicy-Pumpkin-and-Split-Pea-Soup-232424

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  2. thx! i wanted to make this bread and now i will for sure.

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