Bread Number 98: Oatmeal Sandwich Bread

It is two years since I last wrote and I have been making bread almost every week, though not new breads. More on that hiatus in another post.

Bread 98 is light on the whole grains at about one third of the total flour, but it does have lots of oats and, every time I have made this dough, a very long rise, almost or up to 24 hours, that gives a nice mellow sour flavor that I love. I've baked this bread three times for us, and a few more times if you count breads to send home with a friend and one of my daughters. It is a crowd pleaser.

The autolyse takes no time to put together and, following that, the dough sits forever after two stretch and folds. Quite easy.

Total ingredients
175g whole wheat flour (125g for autolyse and 50g that go into the dough)
91g oats (I used fine oats that can be used to make a quick oatmeal)
313g water - only spring water, never tap water
100g starter
13g honey
20g milk
44g olive oil
325g bread flour
11g salt

Autolyse
See the glossary if you are not familiar with the term, but it's basically a short pre-soak phase for the flour, grain, and water. If I do an autolyse, I generally let the flour and any grains soak for approximately 30 minutes. A few minutes more or less will not ruin your dough, so no need to be super diligent on this.

125g whole wheat flour
91g oats (I used fine oats that can be used to make a quick oatmeal)
313g water - only spring water, never tap water

Be careful: Not all of the whole wheat flour goes into the autolyse. Mix well and let the mixture sit for 36 minutes.

Dough
Autolyse mixture
100g starter
50g whole wheat flour
13g honey
20g milk
44g olive oil
325g bread flour
11g salt

Mix the dough together until all of the liquid is absorbed and the flour is integrated. Let sit for 20 minutes.

Stretch and folds
1. At 20 minutes, do a little kneading, just for a minute, and then a stretch and fold.
2. Wait another 15-30 minutes, whatever is convenient, and do another stretch and fold. The dough should be firm.

Cover this dough with plastic instead of something else. It tends to dry out easily.

In a winter kitchen, I have let this dough rise for up to 24 hours. The last time, during some mild winter days and nights (nights of 45 degrees Fahrenheit and days of up to 60), the dough took about 19.5 hours, and to be honest, I could have let it sit for an hour more. It was a recent Sunday evening and I just felt like baking already.

Patience please

The dough hardly rose overnight even though the kitchen was relatively warm. I did sprinkle on some water and replace the insulated, almost shower-cap cover over the bowl because there was starting to be a dry patch on the dough. It seemed to work.

I did the dent test to make sure that the dough was ready, but honestly, I always feel that there's a leap of faith in the determination that it is time to shape the dough and do a final rise before baking. I have waited until a dough looks super puffy, even post-puffy, and the breads come out pretty good anyway. When the comparison is supermarket or even farmers market bread, these are still way better.

Shaping dough and baking

One hour before baking, preheat oven to 460 degrees.

I sprinkle water on the counter, which prevents the dough from sticking when shaping it. This time, I made the oatmeal bread in a loaf pan. I do spray the loaf pan at this point with non-stick spray, then placed the shaped dough in there so that it is about the same length as the pan. Cover with plastic, or in my case, with another pan. Just make sure that the covering will not permit the dough to dry out.

Let the dough sit for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. Many bakers do a dent test at this point, but, I confess, I generally do not.


Another leap of faith and I put the dough in the oven, covered, of course. I used another loaf pan that fit right on top and this worked very well. One could use a dutch oven instead or a la cloche.

At 15 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 440 degrees. Let the dough stay in the oven for another 25 minutes.

In a nutshell:
Preheat to 460 and bake at 460 for 15 minutes.
Reduce to 440 and bake for 25 minutes.
Total of 40 minutes in the oven.

Beautiful oven spring and excellent taste. A crowd pleaser.