In the 15 years since I first tried Brother Juniper's Struan Bread, I've tasted a lot of great bread, but I still don't think I've tried anything that makes as great toast as Struan Bread does. Nor have I tried any bread is so universally enjoyed: everyone who tries it agrees that this bread makes killer toast.
It isn't bad for sandwiches either.
I have to admit though that this bread occasionally gives me nightmares. Click "Read More" to learn why.
The Nightmares
When I was in high school I worked in the Brother Juniper's bakery and cafe. For the most part I worked on the slicing machine, but I also helped scale and shape the loaves. Oh yes, and top the loaves with poppy seeds.
The poppy seeds. The poppy seeds are what give me nightmares.
I have no idea how many pounds of poppy seeds we went through a day, but I know we made as many as 500 loaves of Struan Bread, each one covered with hundreds of poppy seeds. Those seeds would get everywhere: in your hair, under your fingernails, in your clothes, everywhere you can imagine. Even a few places you can't imagine: I recall a number of times pulling poppy seeds out of strange places (like my book bag for school or a clean pair of pants) and wondering "How in the world did poppy seeds get in there?!?
I still avoid poppy seeds most of the time, though I'll admit they are wonderful on top of this loaf.
About Struan Bread
Struan Bread (properly pronounced "STRU-en bread", but most people I know call it "STRON bread") is a harvest bread. I believe the story is that Peter Reinhart read something about a traditional bread that Irish villagers baked into which they threw a little bit of everything they were harvesting. Struan Bread as we know it is an attempt to capture the spirit of that loaf.
Regardless of the origin, this bread is wonderful. One is certainly free to experiment with including different or additional grains. I've done so a bit and the bread has turned out quite good, though I don't think any of them have be as excellent as the combination found in the original recipe (reproduced below).
Oh yeah, I need to add that this recipe is roughly the recipe found in Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice. I believe he includes versions of it in most of his other baking books (Crust & Crumb and Brother Juniper's Bread Book come to mind). If you don't already have one of his bread books on your shelf you owe it to yourself to pick one up.
Mix together the ingredients for the soaker. Cover and allow to soak for at least half an hour or as long as overnight.
In a larger bowl, combine the dry ingredients, then stir in wet ingredients and soaker. Add more flour or water until the dough can be formed into a ball that is tacky but not sticky. Place the ball of dough on a clean work surface and knead it for 10 to 12 minutes, then return it to the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to ferment until doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.
Remove the dough from the bowl, degas it gently, and split it for two loaves or shape it as is for one. Place the loaves in greased bread pans, spritz or sprinkle water on top, and sprinkle a handful of poppy seeds on top.
Cover the pans loosely with plastic and allow the loaves to rise until doubled in size again, approximately 90 minutes.
Bake these loaves at 350 for 40 to 60 minutes, until the internal temperature is around 190 degrees. When ready the loaves will be quite brown on top and will make a hollow thud when tapped on the bottom.
Doesn't that look good? Trust me, it is WONDERFUL! Try it, it is worth the work!
Related Recipes: Maple Oatmeal Bread
It isn't bad for sandwiches either.
I have to admit though that this bread occasionally gives me nightmares. Click "Read More" to learn why.
The Nightmares
When I was in high school I worked in the Brother Juniper's bakery and cafe. For the most part I worked on the slicing machine, but I also helped scale and shape the loaves. Oh yes, and top the loaves with poppy seeds.
The poppy seeds. The poppy seeds are what give me nightmares.
I have no idea how many pounds of poppy seeds we went through a day, but I know we made as many as 500 loaves of Struan Bread, each one covered with hundreds of poppy seeds. Those seeds would get everywhere: in your hair, under your fingernails, in your clothes, everywhere you can imagine. Even a few places you can't imagine: I recall a number of times pulling poppy seeds out of strange places (like my book bag for school or a clean pair of pants) and wondering "How in the world did poppy seeds get in there?!?
I still avoid poppy seeds most of the time, though I'll admit they are wonderful on top of this loaf.
About Struan Bread
Struan Bread (properly pronounced "STRU-en bread", but most people I know call it "STRON bread") is a harvest bread. I believe the story is that Peter Reinhart read something about a traditional bread that Irish villagers baked into which they threw a little bit of everything they were harvesting. Struan Bread as we know it is an attempt to capture the spirit of that loaf.
Regardless of the origin, this bread is wonderful. One is certainly free to experiment with including different or additional grains. I've done so a bit and the bread has turned out quite good, though I don't think any of them have be as excellent as the combination found in the original recipe (reproduced below).
Oh yeah, I need to add that this recipe is roughly the recipe found in Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice. I believe he includes versions of it in most of his other baking books (Crust & Crumb and Brother Juniper's Bread Book come to mind). If you don't already have one of his bread books on your shelf you owe it to yourself to pick one up.
Struan Bread
Makes 1 large loaf or 2 small loaves
Soaker
3 tablespoons polenta
3 tablespoons rolled oats
2 tablespoons wheat bran
1/4 cup water
Dough
3 cups unbleached bread flour
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon instant yeast
3 tablespoons cooked brown rice
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup water
topping
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
Mix together the ingredients for the soaker. Cover and allow to soak for at least half an hour or as long as overnight.
In a larger bowl, combine the dry ingredients, then stir in wet ingredients and soaker. Add more flour or water until the dough can be formed into a ball that is tacky but not sticky. Place the ball of dough on a clean work surface and knead it for 10 to 12 minutes, then return it to the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to ferment until doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.
Remove the dough from the bowl, degas it gently, and split it for two loaves or shape it as is for one. Place the loaves in greased bread pans, spritz or sprinkle water on top, and sprinkle a handful of poppy seeds on top.
Cover the pans loosely with plastic and allow the loaves to rise until doubled in size again, approximately 90 minutes.
Bake these loaves at 350 for 40 to 60 minutes, until the internal temperature is around 190 degrees. When ready the loaves will be quite brown on top and will make a hollow thud when tapped on the bottom.
Doesn't that look good? Trust me, it is WONDERFUL! Try it, it is worth the work!
Related Recipes: Maple Oatmeal Bread
Comments
Hi FLoyd, I heard you worked at Brother Junipers and have insights on the formulas, thus the reason for my note. In my copy of Brother Junipers bread book, I note the formula for Stout Bread appears EXTREMELY under hydrated. I see ~ 1400g of flour and bran but only ~ 330g of liquid. Yeilding a dryish 24% dough??? I assume the rice is hydration neutral so I don't use that in my calc. Question: is the recipe in the book accurate or can you shed more insight on approx hydration rate?
Recently I tried to make this Struan recipe using a sourdough starter in place of the yeast. My thinking was if this tastes so wonderful, how much better it would be made with a SD starter. The results were a very dense loaf of bread that did not rise enough. It could be that I didn't give it enough rising time, but more than a day rising is just a bit too much for me.
Even as dense as it is, the bread when toasted lightens up a bit and thin slices are very delicious topped with some cheese to melt under the toaster oven. But then, what can't be improved by some melted cheese?
Next time I'll make the recipe with the yeast and stop messing around with perfection.
I often skip that too because of the hassle, but this is a great idea to do with leftover rice!
I love the Struan Bread also. Nothing beats it for toast is right. I do have a question tho. Does Buttermilk freeze? I don't buy it except to make the bread and never use it all (I have to buy a quart at a time.).
Any suggestions? Did anyone use the powdered buttermilk instead of fresh?
Thanks
I use reconstituted buttermilk for all my baking that calls for buttermilk. It works fine, and the powder keeps for a long time in the freezer. I made Struan this weekend from the BBA recipe, but used whole wheat flour for about one third of the total amount, and substituted sesame seeds for poppy seeds. It's almost a bit too sweet for me. I think I'll use less brown sugar next time. But over all, it's a flavorful moist loaf.
A while ago, I made the version in Brother Juniper's Bread book, but was not near as impressed with it as with the version in BBA.
I made this bread the other day, it came out very nicely.
But I ended up adding about a cup of flour before it got to what seemed like the right consistency to me. This was fine as even the larger loaf is going pretty quickly here. I was just wondering how much flour others found they needed to add to the recipe.
By my (sometimes faulty) calculations, it's nearly 100% hydration as listed, though I'm not sure how to count the grains in the soaker for hydration calculating - or the rice for that matter, which is another grain and has some moisture of its own.
Russ
Oh, my gosh! This sounds so good!
Is that considered 2 small loaves? What sized pans did you use?
Oh my, I made it and it is so good.........I have been pretty darn successful for awhile now and make a pretty decent variety but this is going to be a "go to" bread for me.
I baked up a loaf of this bread yesterday and I must say, it's absolutely marvelous! They seel Brother Juniper's Struan bread at my work's cafeteria (I'm not sure where the bread actually comes from as I can't find it in stores or the actual bakery anywhere) and I used to eat it every morning toasted with jam. It's good to know I can now reproduce something that's just as great!
This is an old post, but the question of freezing buttermilk wasn't answered as far as I could tell. Yes, you can - I have successfully frozen buttermilk to use in making cheese. Freeze it in icecube trays, if you measure the amount of water which one cube holds, then you will know how much is in each cube.
Margaret
I am so glad you posted this recipe!
I first made struan from Brother Juniper's Bread Book when I was an admittedly undersized and puny 16 year old. I remember the dough being so difficult to knead that I was literally standing on a chair pummeling at one point, and while it was good it just seemed like so much work that I never went back to it. I bought myself a stand mixer in my 20's and when I moved to SF I had told my husband about how wonderful this toast was, but that it was a nightmare and he would have to help me knead it. So I found your recipe, commenced, and...it was SO EASY!
Maybe it's the change in altitude and humidity. Maybe it's just that I haven't looked at my copy of the book for a while because it's in storage. Maybe it's just that you wrote it in such a way that it resonated with me, but I have made this at least six times since finding your post, and every time it has been magnificent. And NOT hard to knead at all.
It makes incredible toast. It makes divine croutons when tossed with a little olive oil, onion and garlic powder, salt and pepper, and baked. I love it with butter. I love it plain.
It's a fantastic bread! Thanks for posting and for inspiring me to retry this delectable treat!
I am a little confused, why aren't there comments under this recipe?
I just made this bread. It really is so tasty. My skills are nascent and rudimentary but it still turned out so nice. Its a bread that opens up so many possibilities as you could use many combinations of grains in the initial soak. But as stated above I don't think any could taste as quietly perfect as the balance of grains in the original recipe. I also like the addition of brown rice. Its almost imperceptible in color and appearance but it makes the bread so different in the best way at least for me. I will be making this often. And I will try other grains but keep on adding the rice for the moment! And it is not too sweet for me at all. I liked the brown sugar plus honey.
Please try it if like me if haven't already.
The loaf looks very good, I salute you. I have a question though. All the ingredients seem logical to me except for the cooked brown rice. This one kind of me threw me off. Would you happen to know of a substitute for it in case I can't find it or don't have any leftover cooked brown rice?
I cab't find the actual recipe for these rolls. Please somehow give me a link
I'm going to get the ingredients tomorrow and I hope the one I make comes out as good as the one I see!
It looks absolutely fantastic and I'm sure smells the same
I love this bread!! And, I have periodically gone searching for a recipe for it, ever since the stores in my community stopped carrying it.
Thank-you for posting this; I am a new fan!
I had a copy of Brother Juniper’s Bread Book for many years and made Struan for many years but never had the success I’ve have had since finding this post/recipe. I lost my copy of that precious book when our home burned in the Almeda Wildfire in Southern Oregon in September of 2020. So I was on the hunt for a while for the right recipe. So happy to have found your version. Thank you!
I’m still getting holes in some areas of my Struan and very loose crumb at the top center of almost every loaf. I bake it in a loaf pan. Any help appreciated.
I’m getting tunneling in my loaves of Struan and the drum is very loose right at the top center. I use a loaf pan FYI. ANY advice would be appreciated.
Kim
Hi,
I have followed the recipe exactly as it says but the end result is a very wet dough. Is it supposed to be this wet?
Hi,
I have followed the recipe exactly as it says but the end result is a very wet dough. Is it supposed to be this wet?
What purpose does the brown rice serve please?
Years ago I bought Brother Junipers Bread Book. The recipe in this book is not the same. I am curious as to why. I sold bread for years and Struan was my best selling.