Multi-Grain Bread

Today Dylan and I made Multi Grain Bread, loosely based on a recipe in an out of print cookbook (The Book of Bread by Jones and Jones) .

Here's the recipe with our changes:
2 cups boiling water
1 cup stone-ground white corn meal
1 cup stone ground grits
1 cup oatmeal
2 T active dry yeast
1/3 cup warm water
at least 4 cups white flour, unbleached bread flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup oat bran
1 cup sour cream or yogurt (we used about 1/2 cup sour cream and 1/2 cup buttermilk)
1 cup milk
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut oil
2 T Kosher salt

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water with a pinch of sugar
Pour the boiling water over corn meal, the grits, and the oatmeal and set aside to cool.
Add 1 cup of white flour and 1 1/2 cups whole wheat to the mixture and beat well.
Stir in the yeast, bran, sour cream/buttermilk mixture), milk, sugar, oil and salt.
Add the remaining white flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough is stiff.

I then changed to a dough hook and kneaded the bread, adding flour as needed. How much flour you need varies with the humidity and with the types of oatmeal, corn meal and grits that you use.

Continue to knead either with the machine or by hand, ending with some on the counter kneading. When the dough is smooth, form it into a ball and put it in a greased bowl.

Dylan is putting the dough into the greased bowl in the pictures below. He was so proud that he could pick up the whole amount of the dough and throw it into the bowl.




We covered it in plastic and to tell the truth we left it for most of the day. After rising about three hours, we punched it down and left it until about 3 PM before we shaped the loaves.

I love about bread making that you can ignore the rising bread and get back to it whenever. With just a little attention (punch it down, turn it over), it keeps doing the rising process and doesn't seem to mind the neglect!

The three loaves at the beginning of this post are the result of our labors.

We had to taste it right out of the oven. Ummmmm, ummmmm, Good!