Sunday, February 14, 2010

Honey Oatmeal Bread

The idea for making this flavor of bread sprung from looking at Michael Smith's recipe for bread in 'The Best of Chef at Home', in which he gives a country oat bread variation.

I started reading the recipe, and it involves all sorts of kneading and punching voodoo magic... the kind that I've learned I can do away with by making moist artisan-style bread.

After searching the internet for a bit, and using my intuition, I ended up doing this:

Dough:
  • 2 cups bread flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 3/4 cup rolled oats
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 Tsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp yeast

Glaze:
  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • 1 Tbsp honey
  • Sprinkle of rolled oats
The rolled oats were soaked in a bowl with boiling hot water for 1 hour, then drained.

Started the dough off by melting the butter in a pan, then adding the honey and water and heating until tepid. Mixed this liquid with the flours, salt, yeast, and oats until combined. Placed into a greaced steel bowl, covered, and let it rise in a warm spot for 2 hours.

Placed the dough into a hot loaf pan, lined with parchment, and place into a 450F oven with a few splashes of water on the bottom to create steam. Kept it moist with splashes of water for about 20 minutes. Melted the butter and honey in a pan, brushed it on top of the bread, sprinkled with rolled oats, then let it bake in a dry oven for 10 minutes until nicely browned.

The resulting bread was delicious and fluffy but far too moist. I used too much water and/ or underbaked it. Because the soaked oats were so moist and with the addition of butter and honey, I should have used 1 1/2 cups of water instead of 2.

UPDATE: RECIPE FROM '200 Fast and Easy Artisan Breads:'
  • 4 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour
  • 2 cups large-flake rolled oats
  • 2 Tbsp instant or bread machine yeast
  • 1 1/2 tbsp fine table or kosher salt
  • 1/3 cup wildflower, clover or other pale amber liquid honey
  • 3 cups lukewarm water
Mix, beat 40 strokes, let it rise for 2 hours, bake for 27 to 30 minutes at 400F, until the inside registers 190F.