Wheat and Oat Bread

Today was baking day! I tried another new recipe from the big bread baking book and it turned out great! I could not believe that something with oatmeal and bran could be so soft and delicious! It was called Wheat and Oat Bread on page 201.

Everyone ate and enjoyed this new raisin bread. I did as the author suggested and used less molasses than the recipe called for. I used 1/3 of a cup. It was so awesome warm and fresh from the oven and spread with butter! I will definitely make it again. Next time I will add even more raisins.

Maple Oatmeal Bread p. 188

This is Maple Oatmeal Bread from page 188.

This recipe would have made 2 small loaves, but I chose to make it into 1 large loaf and two small buns. The author says it is for two loaves.

I made it with cooked porridge instead of soaking oats for 1 hour in boiling water. It didn't need as much flour as the recipe called for, but it did make a delicious bread. It had a delicate sweetness from the maple syrup and it had some oat texture and sticky-ness. If maple syrup weren't so expensive, I would highly recommend this loaf, as it tasted wonderful!  I don't feel it was quite amazing enough to justify the added expense.

It had a strange way to create the bread too. First, you only add some of the flour and let it rise, then you knead in the rest of the flour, place the dough into the baking pans and let it rise again. Then you bake. It worked fine, but it was different.

English Oatmeal Bread p. 180

I was so proud of myself today - I found time to bake after lunch. And it was a loaf that needed the oats to soak for 2 hours! The recipe says it makes 2 loaves or 2 dozen buns, so I made one big loaf and the rest into 4 buns. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day here so I raised everything in my nice, sunny window. It was a beautiful loaf - it rose up tall, smooth and even.  Everything looked perfect, and as I was sliding the loaf into the oven, I got a case of the clumsies and bumped it against the oven frame. POOF! Out went all the air I just rose into it for the last hour or so. Sigh. Since the oven was hot already, I didn't want to wait for it to rise again and I baked it anyway. But really, It would have been better if I had waited.

The buns turned out beautifully. I tried one. Could have used more salt (but I didn't use the full amount the recipe called for since we're trying to limit salt here). It tasted a bit like my morning oatmeal, but it was good. The children loved them and kept coming back for more. It was soft and had a slightly stickier texture than my "usual" bread. I did forget the step of the egg wash and the oatmeal coating over the loaf.  Oops! So my loaf looks ugly but tastes fine. I will make this recipe again. The amounts called for worked out beautifully. I know I could also make this with left-over cooked oatmeal instead of soaked oats. I will try that someday!

My sunken, ugly loaf and plain, nice buns. Yum.