My little adventure with the French rustic loaf happened on the rainy Sunday. The Saturday beforewas not much nicer in respect of the weather. So, I started it off by soaking the seeds for James Morton’s cholesterol-cutting loaf. I have no problems with cholesterol levels as of yet, but the recipe called for oats, seeds, and nuts. I love all of these and was curious to see how they would work in bread.
Very far from the wet dough…
The first tiny alarm bells rang when I combined all the ingredients. Instructions stated I should end up with a ‘very wet dough’ which (as you can see in the picture) was totally not the case. I double-checked water quantities but found no discrepancies. (The only explanation I can think of is the fact that I used jumbo oats and they must have absorbed more water than anticipated by the recipe.) From there on, I had a suspicion I would end up with a rather dry loaf, but chose to stick to the recipe nonetheless and not to add any liquids.
Ready to go into the oven.
Apart from the question of moisture everything seemed to be going well. The recipe said to bake for 35-45 minutes. I checked the two loaves after half an hour and decided that 5 more minutes would be enough. Only I was also making dinner for the family at the same time, got side tracked, and totally forgot about my bread! I think I got it out at around 45 minute mark and much darker than I would have hoped. It wasn’t ruined, but resulted in a crust that was too thick and, I suspect, dried the bread even more.
Very brown loaves…
And yet, despite these two hiccups, I am still pleased with the result. The whole walnuts and the seeds give the bread a lovely crunchy texture. The bread lends itself well to slicing and was delicious alongside leek soup as well as beef stew (I went for wintry comfort food all weekend, as you can see). I think I might try to add some more water, definitely reduce baking time, and (maybe?) bake it in a tin whenever I get the chance to try this again. Only there’s so many more recipes in line to try out…
Bread Lover's Adventure Log 