I love complex pain au levain as much as any bread lovers do but there are times when I crave a simple loaf of bread that is yeasty and sweet. Lucky for me, an enriched dough mixed directly using commercial yeast is the most achievable kind of bread I can make in my home oven. There is no need to look after a sourdough starter day in and day out. There is little concern for steam in the oven to create an incomparable crust. There isn’t even significant time commitment that ties me to the house while the dough ferments. This is the feel good bread that makes home baker feel like a superstar.
I made the Buttermilk Oatmeal Bread from AntoniaJames’ recipe submission at food52. This bread has soft dense crumb that is perfect for slicing. The taste is faintly sweet from the enrichment of buttermilk, rolled oats, oat bran, honey, and a knob of butter. But the smell! Oh my whole house smelled exactly like a bakery while the loaves were baking. It was the same irresistible aroma that draws me inside bakeries in early mornings. The outside of the loaves turned into an attractive golden colour with a little rustic bumps from the rolled oats.
If you read the directions in the recipe, you will soon notice it lacks the precision that bread recipes typically embrace. The all-important weight measurement for flour? Make your informed judgement anywhere between 3 to 3 1/2 cups. To the inexperienced, this may be frustrating. How much is too much? How much is enough? Fortunately, I’m not entirely new to bread baking and I recall many of the lessons I learned in school. Perhaps it was the extra oat bran I added but I needed barely 2 1/2 cup of flour before my dough was tacky and cleared the mixing bowl. My prefer way of mixing is to start the dough in the standmixer so the messiest stage is taken care of by the dough hook. Once the dough is developed enough to be easily handled, I finish kneading by hand until enough gluten development is complete. This way I get to feel the elasticity of the dough and can make adjustment as needed. Besides, kneading is such a tactile experience. Remember when you were a kid and squishing dough between your hands was the best thing ever?
The fermentation was my most successful since I made my new year resolution to bake yeast bread every month. Thanks to an uncharacteristically warm day, my house was at the optimal temperature for dough to rise. Imagine that! I chose to shape the dough into two ovals instead of one big loaf. I love to bake two small loaves instead because I can always freeze one for later or send Little Bro home with one. Like many enriched dough, this one bakes at a much lower temperature of 350F. It took much longer for my oven than the recipe suggested but all was well when the internal temperature reached 200F.
I love this buttermilk bread. It tastes great by itself though with homemade jam (I have plenty!) or ham & cheese, it was spectacular. This is definitely comfort food for me. For such an easy recipe, my interest for similar bread in this family is renewed. I am eyeing a cranberry walnut bread in Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Can’t wait!
