Oatmill Loaf - or how to get your oats....

Oooooh, this has come out nicely.





Very soft crumb, thin crust, should toast lovely.





When I built up the starter for the Pain de Campagne I made a bit too much, so decided to try out this new flour I found at Sainsbury's. It's probably been there for ages, I just haven't looked at it before. Oatmill by Allinson.

Recipe:

overnight starter:

50g ripe white starter (mine was 100% hydration)
50g wholemeal rye flour

mix to form a firm levain, cover tightly, leave at room temperature (about 68% at the moment here) overnight. In the morning it will be domed, and bubbly.

dough:

200g water
all the starter above broken into pieces

whisk a bit to soften the levain and start to dissolve into the water

Add:
200g Allinson Oatmill flour
50g White strong bread flour
1tsp salt
1 quarter tsp instant yeast.

Mix to a shaggy dough (I use my trusty dough whisk from Eric at Breadtopia) and autolyse for about 30 minutes.

turn out into oiled roasting tin and stretch and fold twice.
cover, bulk ferment for 2 hours folding twice more in that time.

After this dough should be puffy and more than doubled in size.

Degas and preshape, rest 15 minutes. Shape into batard. I didnt freebake this one, I thought it looked like it needed the help of a tin, so I popped the dough into a 1lb loaf tin, and left for another 45 mins or so until doubled again.

Meantime, preheat oven to gas mark 8.

When doubled spray with water, slash if you want to (I didn't - just forgot) I sprinkled some sesame seeds on top too, I thought they might go well with the oatmeal.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until internal temperature 200 degrees F. I think it could have been popped back into the oven out of the tin for another 5 minutes after that, the base has softened up quite a bit as it cooled.

I think it looks nice, what say you?

Pain de Campagne - two different ways

I have been experimenting over the last couple of weeks with a recipe for Pain de Campagne posted on The Fresh Loaf .

You can find the recipe here:

Bread is lovely and open holey artisan type bread, made with a sourdough starter.

Last week I used my rye starter:



Nice loaf, but I made a mistake of making the rolls too small, so they were rather leathery, and not very nice toasted (which is how I eat most of my bread, for breakfast).



The crumb was lovely and open though. And the bread was very very tasty.

So I baked again today, but this time used my white starter, and added the rye in with the main flour.

Odd how just that small change can make such a difference in the bread.

David Snyder (whose recipe this is) also suggested that I bake a little longer, to get a crustier crust. So I did. Trouble is, my oven is hotter no one side than the other.

Peering through the door, I saw a lovely russety crust.





But when I took it out of the oven, I think dark brown may be tinged with ...

burnt.

Or at least it is in my book. But it IS crunchy!


The crumb is much lighter in colour than the last one, and much milder in flavour. It will be interesting to see how this toasts.



I have another loaf cooling at the moment - a completely different flour I found on the shelf at Sainsbury's. Allinsons Oatmill. Sounds interesting, so I'll report on that next when it is cool and cut open.

Update on the weight front...

and round the back of course...

I am losing it all round luckily.

I'm due back to the doc next week, so I hope to have dropped a bit more, but I think I have lost about three quarters of a stone since I started. My clothes are noticeably looser especially around my waist (come on hips, keep up! ).

Reductil seems to work for me - I am not able to eat as much at a sitting, and so long as I have a smaller plate (so that visually I am still eating a full plateful) I am eating substantially less than before.

and no exercise yet ! Yay!