Oatmeal Chia Bread

It had been a while since I had used cooked steel cut oats in bread and I had never tried them in the delayed fermentation method (unless you count some of Peter Reinhart's recipes).  I wanted to make a smaller-than-usual cute looking loaf as a gift for a friend,  so I adjusted the ingredients accordingly.  I ended up with two small loaves.

Ingredients(two small loaves)

I cooked 100 g of steel cut oats in 452 g (about 2 cups) of water until well cooked. Added ½ Tbsp agave nectar and a pinch of salt towards the end of cooking. The total weight was 480 g. I then used 2/3 of the oatmeal.

320 g cooked oatmeal (cooled)

9 g cracked flax seeds (1 Tbsp)

6 g chia seeds (½ Tbsp)

70 g bread flour (about ½ cup)

280 g whole wheat flour (about 2 cups)

½ tsp instant yeast

1 tsp salt

½ Tbsp agave nectar

¾ cup water

Day 1:

Ingredients

Stage 2: Dry ingredients mixed in, oatmeal, water, oil and agave

8:51 pm: All the ingredients mixed in

I always let the just-mixed-in dough sit for a bit so the flours can soak the liquids, making kneading easier.

9:19 pm: Messy kneading

The dough was more hydrated and usual and extremely sticky and difficult to knead.  But I resisted adding more flour to see if the flours and chia seeds would continue to absorb liquid.

11:43 pm: A good full rise on the kitchen counter

11:45 pm: Deflated and then refrigerated overnight.

Day 2:

5:38 pm: Out of the refrigerator

8:08 pm: Near room temperature

8:15 pm: Split and shaped

The dough was still quite wet and difficult to handle.  I used some flour to help with the shaping, even though I don't like adding flour at the end as it doesn't integrate well.

9:40 pm: Proofed dough. The smaller piece was placed
in a preheated cast iron loaf pan

Two small loaves out of the oven

More hydration = nicer crumb

Date: April 13-14, 2012

Recipe: My own recipe

Comments:

I loved the nice holes in the crumb. It was light and moist (thank you chia seeds). The bread had a neutral flavor. 

Unfortunately I stored the bread in the same (plastic) container that had held the previous bread and had some left over crumbs. That, and the increasing warmth in the kitchen and inattention on my part resulted in half the loaf getting moldy. It's summer here and like it or not, bread has to go in the fridge after a day.