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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Whole-Grain Maple Oat Bread

Those of you familiar with King Arthur Flour I'm sure are big fans, like I am. When I received their latest catalog in the mail a little while ago, I happily paged through it, and loved all the recipes that were included. One that I wanted to try right away was their Whole-Grain Maple-Walnut Oat Bread. I suggested it to my Bread BakeTogether (or BBT) buddy, Janis, and she was interested in making it as well. Yay! :o)

Whole-Grain Maple Oat Bread
Who says healthy has to taste yucky? :o)


All ingredients in this bread are pantry staples which was another motivator to make this bread: whole wheat flour, white flour, old-fashioned oats (ground to flour in the food processor), water, maple syrup, yeast, etc. I only left out the walnuts (due to allergies), subbed maple sugar with agave nectar, also subbed oil for butter, and changed the amounts for some of the ingredients (see bottom of post).

Everything went into the bread machine. After 5-10 minutes of kneading in the bread machine, I stopped the machine and let the dough sit for 15-20 minutes. This resting period is called autolyse and allows the flour to absorb the liquid which aids in gluten development during kneading afterwards.





After the first rise, I rolled out the dough and shaped it into loaf. The second rise took about 45 minutes. I sprayed it with water, using a water bottle, and then baked it in a preheated 425F oven for 5 minutes for some oven spring. After that, I reduced the oven temperature to 350F and baked the bread another 30 minutes. Although the recipe says to check for an internal temperature of 190F, I find that bread can have a somewhat gummy texture at this temperature. That's why I like to bake bread to 200-205F for a better texture. This particular bread reached 208F degrees and it was perfectly moist and not underbaked and gummy.

Soft and fluffy interior. Bon appetit!


Final thoughts/tips:
  • This bread was a huge hit. Moist, soft and tender, yet sturdy enough to withstand hubby spreading peanut butter on it without crumbling.
  • It was great eaten fresh as well as toasted. It also freezes very well. I like to slice up the entire loaf, wrap it in plastic wrap and store it in a large ziploc bag and freeze it. Whenever you need bread, just take however many slices you want and set them on the counter to thaw out.
  • The nuttiness and slight sweetness from the oats came through really well. The bread had a nice sweetness to it. But to be honest, I couldn't taste the maple flavor much even though I used a little bit more maple syrup. I'm thinking it's because I omitted the maple flavoring.
  • I'm submitting this post to Susan's weekly round-up of yeast recipes at YeastSpotting


Whole-Grain Maple Oat Bread
(adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients:
  • 9 oz (lukewarm) water + a little extra water to obtain a soft and somewhat sticky dough
  • 2 oz maple syrup
  • 3/8 oz agave nectar
  • 1 oz vegetable oil
  • 5-1/4 oz old-fashioned rolled oats, ground in food processor for 30 seconds
  • 3 oz King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour
  • 8-1/2 oz Gold Medal unbleached bread flour
  • 10 gr vital wheat gluten
  • 3/4 oz non-fat dry milk powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp (8 gr) yeast
Combine all ingredients in the bread machine and run the Dough cycle. Continue by following the instructions in the original recipe.

17 comments:

  1. Look at that crumb! It looks amazing! Looks light and fluffy too! May have to try it without the nuts. Will blog about mine this week! :-)

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    1. Thanks Janis. It was delicious, and great texture too. Looking forward to your post.

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  2. Wow, gorgeous loaf of bread! Love the lovely texture, it looks soft with beautiful crumbs! Well done!

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    1. Thanks Joyce, I hope you give it a try sometime.

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  3. It looks really wonderful. A perfect texture and a well risen bread.

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    1. Thank you. It's a very nice bread recipe :-)

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  4. Georgeous! Looks like a great loaf a bread!

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    1. It was, Chelly. Thanks. Will definitely make it again.

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  5. I love homemade bread! Looks really good!

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  6. First off, thank you for the kind words. Second, I LOVE King Arthur Flour. They have the best customer service and all of their recipes are great. Thanks for sharing this one

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    1. Thanks! I can't wait to try your white cake recipe. And I agree, KAF recipes are great.

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  7. Wonderful looking loaf! I just love the texture
    You did a really great job.

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    1. Thanks Winnie :-) You always make such beautiful Challah bread!

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  8. Beautiful! (Okay, that's the only KA recipe I've ever had fail on me, but you've inspired me to try again.) I can't think what went wrong, I don't often have trouble with bread but those loaves just look so tantalizing. Good work!

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    1. Thanks Hobby Baker. I do hope you give it another try. I did add a bit more water than the recipe called for. We finished this loaf already but I will surely make it again!

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  9. What a glorious loaf of bread! I love whole wheat and maple together, and I agree that a temp of 200 gives the best texture. Good tip to slice and freeze, we're always challenged to finish a loaf of bread before it gets stale.

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