Oatmeal Bread

I just hate oatmeal porridge so I have to think of better ways of incorporating it in our diet. This is a wonderful bread, soft, sweet and really tasty.

The first bite reminded me of Moshe's honey whole wheat bread. For me Moshe's bread were simply amazing though I do not really miss them now.I can bake my own breads at home which are equally good ;-)

The original recipe required buttermilk but it works well even without it. Head on to Clockwork Lemon for the original recipe. I made this recipe a couple of times later too. Sending it to Yeastspotting this week.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup rolled oats
1 cup boiling water
3 cups wholewheat flour
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp yeast
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil (I used extra virgin olive oil)
1/4 cup brown sugar (I used gur sugar)
1 tsp bread improver (optional)
1 cup lukewarm milk
3/4 cup lukewarm water
some oats for sprinkling


Method

Stir the boiling water in the oats, mix and keep aside covered.

In a large bowl, mix the wholewheat flour and yeast. Make a well in the centre and add the oil, sugar and pour in the milk and water. Stir to form a rather wet mix. Cover with cling film and leave aside for 20 mins.

Add the oatmeal mix, salt and bread improver mix with some of the dry flour and keep incorporating the flour 1 cup at a time. Knead to get a soft dough and until it passes the window pane test. Form into a tight ball, apply oil to it and allow to proof in a well grease bowl for about 1 hour or until the dough has more than doubled. This dough rises just too fast so keep a watch.

Lightly punch the dough, allow to rest for 5 minutes. Divide into two pieces and shape as desired. I made an oval loaf slashed to make it more attractive and a sandwich loaf. Cover with cling film and allow to rise for 20 minutes or until just doubled.

Preheat the oven to 220 C and keep a small pan of water at the bottom of the oven to allow steaming. Brush the top of the loaf with milk, sprinkle some oats and again the brush with milk to make the oats stick to the bread. Sprinkle some water on the side of the oven and pour some water on the floor of the oven. Place the loaf in the oven and allow to bake at 220 C for 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven, brush with milk once again, sprinkle the sides of the oven with water and reduce the temperature after 5 minutes to 200C. This entire process ensure a thinner crust. Just happened to gather this from the googling on bread baking :-)

Bake for 40-50 minutes. It is quite likely that the top of the bread starts browning. Cover with a silver foil and continue baking until well browned and the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

Allow to cool, slice it, lather with some butter or marmalade and enjoy it for breakfast.

Note : I use the bread improver since I reduce the all-purpose to just 1 1/2 cups as against 3 cups and the whole wheat flour available in India is regular atta dough which is really low in gluten. You can skip it depending on the quality of whole wheat flour being used. If you plan to use a 50:50 proportion for whole wheat v/s all purpose, the bread improver is not required.