bnb's blog

Here's my attempt at KA's old fashioned oatmeal bread. This bread is very adaptable. I've tried it with instant oats, old fashioned oats, with honey/molasses, AP flour/bread flour and it has turned out great every time. I did not use the additives that were optional.  On my first attempt I only used a  teaspoon of yeast and the bread had no oven spring, although I did let it crest well above the pan rim before baking. The second time I used the 2 tsps of yeast and the bread had wonderful oven spring. The recipe can be found here.

This is an incredibly moist bread. Very flavorful. 

Gave this recipe a try-half a batch. Started the whole process late afternoon yesterday. I did not have the 10 grain cereal, so subbed grapenut cereal. Used orange oil in place of orange zest. The dough accomodated about 2.25 cups of flour. In spite of this the dough turned out stiff.

I decided to put the dough through cold fermentation. The dough stayed refrigerated all evening. Before bedtime set the dough out to rise at room temperature. Next morning, shaped the loaf, gave it a bit of cinnamon filling and let it rise again. Once in the oven, the dough did not have any oven spring.  Once the bread was out, poured an orange creamsicle cream cheese topping over it (recipe below).

The bread was dense, as I expected, yet moist and soft right out of the oven. Good flavor. I was disappointed with orange flavor in the dough, it wasn't fresh and citrus-y. The long fermentation probably dulled the taste or maybe it just needs more orange oil/zest.  Here are some pics:

Orange creamsicle cream cheese topping:

2 tblsps cream cheese (softened)

1/4 cup, heaped, powdered sugar

1/4 - 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 drop orange oil/1/4 tsp orange zest

1/4 cup milk.

Thoroughly whisk everything till smooth. The topping does not dry and set. It stays sticky and wet.

Had some dough leftover from making pizza using Peter reinhart's recipe. Made a loaf of bread with it. Loaf was baked at 400 F for 25 mins and stayed in after the oven was turned off for 5 more mins. The crumb is airy, light, moist. The crust chewy.

Made these dinner rolls using the Hokkaido milky loaf recipe I blogged about here. The dough was, of course, made minus the sugar. Rolls were baked for 20 mins at 400F and then brushed with melted garlic butter and sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Both crust and crumb are very soft and moist when eaten warm. 

I've attempted a cinnamon swirl bread with a little less than 1/2 the amount of yeast called for in the recipe here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/blog/bnb.

So, I thought I'd push the limit a little more. The hokkaido milky loaf was a recipe I was very interested in. The entire recipe calls for almost 2 pounds of ingredients with the flour contributed more 50% of the weight. I reduced the yeast to a scant 1/3 of the amount called for in the recipe, so probably around 2.5 to 3 oz

I consulted members here about the unusual pan size used in the recipe. Unfortunately the pans were only available online and were pretty expensive. I decided to throw caution to the wind and use a regular 9x5 loaf pan.

Very low yeast content and the wrong pan size seemed like a recipe for failure, but I went against my good judgement and started mixing.

I wanted a pretty moist and soft dough so I held back about 40 g of bread flour. The dough was very sticky and unweildy but after 10 mins of kneading turned into a smooth, supple elastic dough.

I put the dough, covered, in the oven for the first rise. After 2 hours the dough had no discernible activity. So I set a saucepan of hot water in with the dough and turned on the pilot light. After 2 hours, I saw a little bit of rise. I then turned the pilot off and left the hot water in.

5-6 hours later the dough had more than doubled.

I took the dough out of the bowl and did not punch it down. Cut it into 4 pieces. After the 20 mins rest. I spread each quarter with a filling of dark brown sugar, ground walnuts, orange zest and cinnamon and rolled them up. All 4 rolls fit in very snuggly into the 9x5 pan.

The 2nd rise took only 2 hours with a saucepan of water in the oven. The rolls doubled beautifully.

My oven only heats by 25 f increments, I can't set it 340. So I chose a temp of 350F and set the timer to 35 mins with ice cubes in a tray on the bottom rack.

I was very surprised by the amount of oven spring. The bread increased about 1/4 its size in the oven. The resulting loaf is tender, moist, cotton soft. Very very delicious! 

Original recipe: http://schneiderchen.de/237Hokkaido-Milky-Loaf.html

BNB.

 I made this recipe with half the amount of yeast called for in the original, keeping everything else the same. I don't like a discernible yeasty taste in bread so this turned out purrrrrrr-fect. No yeasty taste or smell. Moist, soft and delicious.