We had four for bread, and after I spent last night preparing dough for an overnight rise, I was pleased to see it well risen. That was when the members of the class told me that last time they’d made it they had started it from scratch. The best laid plans…as they say.
After that things went to plan, apart from me misreading the recipe and trying to bake an hour too early.
We had TESCO biscuits (from the ordinary range this time, though more of them) and a lot of tea. Two of the group have just returned from India and described a place of cheap food, fantastic sights and long distances. Well, they actually described a lot more, but those were the things I found interesting.
Sounds like everyone has had a great time.
Meanwhile, I hear you shout, what about the bread?
Well, it emerged from the oven in various well-browned forms, though I wasn’t convinced it was properly cooked. It’s the browning effect of the honey that does that. I would describe it as a hearty bread, exhibiting, as my bread often does, the big bubbles that denote a lack of knocking back and the dense lower layer that indicates a lack of kneading. It’s still good to eat though. Bearing in mind that I cut it too early so that I could get the photograph, it is really quite good. It’s a little heavy if you want to be picky, but it is full of oats, honey, milk and oil so it’s not going to be fluffy like a cloud is it?
Taste is good, with the salt balancing the honey whilst still allowing a little sweetness to come through.
It was very good with my lunchtime Stilton.
In terms of rising one of the loaves started from scratch rose the best with an overnight one coming second and the others (one of each method) looked pretty similar. The fifth lot was taken home as dough due to alack of time. It seems to be the kneading rather than the preparation method that determined the rise. The mix temperature of the overnight loaves never rose beyond 15 degrees, whilst the ones baked from scratch did get up to 23 -24 due to the use of lukewarm water, just short of the recommended 25 degrees. I could have made this higher when I mixed them last night but I thought I’d use cold water to mix as they had a long rise in front of them.
I suspect the overnight loaves have probably developed more flavour, but don’t have away to check this – should have thought to cook one from scratch this morning.
The recipe is now in the Recipe section (that’s under the Resources tab).
