Friday, 5 August, 2011

Oatmeal Bread!

Oatmeal, not just for breakfast anymore. Okay, this bread does make for pretty awesome breakfast bread, but it is also great for ham sammies, chicken, egg, pb&j... you get my point.

Overnight retarding give the loaf slightly more complex flavour and also a longer shelf life. Generally, the longer it takes to make a loaf of bread, the longer it lasts. This does not apply to the chemical-laden frankenloaves in your local grocery store. I'm pretty sure that stuff will outlive us.

But if you are in the mood for a homey and delicious sandwich loaf, this is a great one to try. You can easily combine the ingredients one day and bake it off the next day. Easy peasy. Give the optional cinnamon raisin version a try too, makes great French toast!

Oatmeal Bread
adapted from Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread
for The Mellow Bakers

Bread flour - 1 lb, 8 oz
Whole wheat flour - 8 oz
Rolled oats - 5.3 oz
Water - 1 lb, 4 oz
Milk - 3.5 oz
Honey - 2.4 oz
Vegetable oil - 2.4 oz
Salt - 3½ tsp
Instant dry yeast - 1½ tsp

Day one:

In your stand mixer bowl, combine the oats and water. Let stand 20 minutes.
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix on low, with the dough hook, for 3 minutes.
Mix on medium for 3 more minutes.
Form into a ball and let rest in the fridge, covered, overnight.
I use my stand mixer bowl, one less thing to wash and it is nice and deep.

Day two:

Deflate your cold dough, divide into two.
Shape each piece into a cylinder and roll in some extra oats.
Lightly grease two loaf pans and place the shaped loaves in the pans.
Cover and let rise 2 hours, or until doubled in size.
Preheat oven to 430°F.
Bake 30 minutes, remove loaves from pans and bake another 5-10 minutes, until fully baked through.
Let cool on racks.

Optional raisins and cinnamon!

This is an interesting option, as the bread itself is not very sweet. This version makes a great pb&j, as well as complementing sweet toppings well - such as honey butter or apple butter.

When making the dough - add 2 Tbsp ground cinnamon to the mixture. After the first stage of mixing, add 2 generous cups of plump raisins and mix through.

Proceed with the rest of the recipe, rolling the loaves in the oats is optional.

This bread has been Yeastspotted!

MellowBakers.com