Oatmeal Bread

I can sometimes get very discouraged about bread in Holland. There are a couple of good bakers in Amsterdam, such as Hartog and Vlaamsche Broodhuis, but most bread in supermarkets and even ordinary bakers is soft and squishy, no matter what the colour, grain, or the number of seeds in it.

So today I decided to make my own bread again. I dug into one of my new cookbooks and came up with Oatmeal Sandwich Bread. This recipe produces a very soft, sticky dough so it is not well suited to hand kneading. Instead, I put the apple-green machine to work.

The recipe calls for the mixed ingredients, except the salt, to rest for half an hour to autolyse. It lets the flour absorb more moisture and produce a moister loaf. It certainly seems to work, producing a large, flavourful loaf with a good crumb. It slices easily and does indeed work well for sandwiches.

The loaf is very large, rising well over the pan. I think I might split the dough into two smaller pans next time.

Oatmeal Sandwich Bread
Adapted from Good to the Grain

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
3 tablespoons molasses (I used Zeeuwse stroop, which is as near as I can get here)
2 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose four
1 cup rolled oats (I had a mixture of fine and large rolled oats)
2 ounces butter, melted
1 teaspoon salt

1. Combine the warm water and molasses in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir until most of the molasses is dissolved, then mix in the yeast. Let sit to proof the yeast for about 5 minutes, until the yeast has bloomed.
2. Add the melted butter, flour, and oats (but not the salt) to the yeast mixture and stir together with a wooden spoon. Let rest for half an hour.
3. Add the salt and using the dough hook, mix the dough for 6 minutes on medium. The dough is moist and will slap around the sides without sticking too much. If it does stick, add a tablespoon of flour until the dought comes away from the sides. at the end, to quote: "The dough should be s0ft and supple, slightly tacky,with a beautiful sheeting effect."
4. Butter a bread loaf pan.
5. Scrape the dough onto a floured surface and knead it a few times. Butter a large bowl (I just did a cursary rinse and oil of the mixing bowl), cover, and let rise in a warm place for an hour, until doubled in size.
6. Turn the dough onto a floured surface, shaping it into an oblong form about the size of the loaf pan,  squeezing out the air. Shape it into a loaf by folding it over and pinching the edges together to form a seam. Fold under the ends, roll it around a bit, then put it into the buttered pan with seam side down. Let rise for another hour. During that time, preheat the oven to 400 F. 
7. Bake for 40 minutes until the top is dark and it sounds hollow when thumped. (I baked it for closer to 50 minutes, and even then it did not turn as dark brown as the picture in the cookbook).

What to Do with Fresh Figs

You'd think that after living on my own for over 35 years that I would get the hang of cooking for one, I even bought a cookbook called The Pleasures of Cooking for One, which is a pleasant read and has some good sounding recipes, none of which I've made.

So what got into me to purchase a flat of fresh figs, which bruise easily and don't keep well? Of course I ate a few fresh, but that still leaves 14 figs that I had to use up this weekend. Here's what I did.

Fig Compote
This is another fruit recipe from Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce. The caramelized syrup is very yummy.

1/2 pound fresh figs
1/3 cup butter
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons honey

1. Preheat the broiler
2. In a cast iron frying pan, melt the butter, brown sugar, and honey for one minute.
3. Add the figs and cover them with the syrup.
4. Put the pan under the broiler for 5 minutes, and stir the mixture occasionally to keep it from burning.
5. Serve the compote hot over pancakes or porridge.  

Fig Cobbler

I also found a recipe on the internet for a fig cobbler with a cheddar cheese lattice crust, which to me automatically puts it out of the running as a cobbler. I thought the combination of a savoury cheese with the sweetness of the figs might be pleasant, but I was distinctly underwhelmed. I tried to punch it up a bit by adding a smidgen of cayenne pepper to the fruit (which was a nice touch), but the fruit and crust just didn't combine well.

Sun-dried Tomato Focaccia

My newly acquired cookbook, Good to the Grain is providing lots of fodder for kitchen experiments.  One of my faults in cooking is that I rarely follow a recipe exactly, even the first time I try it, and the focaccia made with spelt flour was no different. I followed the flour proportions, but since I had a couple of old dried sun-dried tomatoes lying about that I wanted to use, I incorporated them into the bread as well, and I used the soaking water in the starter.

I am noticing with a number of recipes in this cookbook that the amount of salt required is too high, at least for my kind of salt and my taste. The author, Kim Boyce, always specifies kosher salt, which is really just coarse salt. The brand she uses is Diamond Crystal, which is less salty than Morton's. Since neither of these brands is available in Amsterdam, I just use coarse sea salt. Either this salt is much saltier than her brand, or my taste buds are accustomed to much less salt. Either way, I am now halving all her recommendations for salt, and that is yielding much better results.

Rather than baking one large bread, I divided the dough into 3 after the first rise, reserving 2/3 of the dough in the fridge for future baking.

Sun-Dried Tomato Focaccia

Yield: 3 9-inch round loaves
Source: adapted from Good to the Grain, by Kim Boyce

This produces a flavourful bread with a nice bottom crust. I think the left-over would make excellet bread for panzanella.

Ingredients

2 sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 boiling water

2 teaspoons yeast
pinch of sugar
1 cup warm water

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 cups spelt flour
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teasoon salt

2-4 tablespoons olive oil for greasing the pan

Method

1. Soak the tomatoes in boiling water for half an hour until soft and the water cooled down to lukewarm.
2. Reserve the soaking water and chop the softened tomatoes into small pieces, about the size of currents.
3. In a large bowl, mix the yeast, sugar, warm water, and reserved tomato water. Let stand 5 minutes until the yeast begins to bloom.
4. Stir in the olive oil, salt, and flours. Beat vigorously and then turn out onto a floured surface. The dough will be quite soft.
5. Knead for about 10 minutes, adding up to 1/2 cup of flour to keep the dough from sticking.
6. Grease the mixing bowl with some olive oil, turn the dough into it and turn it so the whole ball gets covered with oil. Cover with a tea towel and set aside in a warm spot to rise until doubled (about 2 hours).
7. Generously grease 3 9-inch cake tins with olive oil. 
8. Punch down the dough and gently fold in the chopped soaked tomatoes. Divide the dough into 3 pieces. Using your finger, spread the dough into the cake tins to form round flat loaves. Dimple them with your finger. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside to rise for another hour.
9. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and bake the breads for 22-25 minutes. Let the bread cool slightly before serving.