Thursday, April 26, 2012

Aaron's Honey Oat Bread the Real Way

Anyone who ever follows someone else's bread recipe eventually finds that the person who wrote it gave you absolutes instead of telling you all the places where it might vary day to day. Oh, and that they left out a few ingredients. Here is Aaron's recipe the way he actually makes it (now that I have failed at it twice and now went through the whole process with him).

Dump some honey in the bowl. It took about four seconds for the right amount to come out of the bottle.
Put just under 3 cups of your hottest tap water in there with the honey.
Put two heaping quarter cups of both bread flour and wheat flour in with it. Stir it up with bread hook. Add 2 not flattened teaspoons of yeast and mix it a tiny bit. Let it rest for 10 minutes.

It should get bubbly. Add half bread flour and half wheat flour a heaping quarter cup at a time (mixing once in a while) until it is no longer liquidy but does not stand up. Then let it rest 10-20 minutes. If the yeast did not seem very active at the beginning of this step, use more bread flour than wheat to compensate.


After this, add half and half wheat and bread flour in heaping quarter cupfuls while mixing until the dough is formed to the right bread dough consistency. If you do not know what this is, find a friend who knows and have them show you. It really cannot be described properly. If you really want me to try, I will say it is soft and pliable but not sticky. Do not put too much in or it will bra brick after you bake it, but if you do not put enough in you will not get it out of the bowl and into your greased bowl easily and it will be too sticky to pan properly later. Read Aaron's recipe for my notes on how to finish this.

3 comments:

Charleen said...

No salt? I want to try this but like you don't want to mess it up!
CH

Charleen said...

Is there no salt? I want to make this but like you, do not want to mess it up!
Charleen Haugen

Aaron said...

There should be salt - 1-1/2 teaspoons, dissolved in to the liquid at the beginning or mixed in to the oatmeal.