BBA Slow & Steady: Mulitgrain Bread Extraordinaire Roundup

Although I am dreadfully behind on posting our results, the bakers of the Slow and Steady subgroup of the BBA Challenge are still working their way through the book. Several of them have pressed on into the sourdough section and are currently nearing the end of the book The Bread Baker's Apprentice!

Their progress has inspired me to pick back up and post the next in the series of Slow and Steady roundups. We all baked the Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire sometime back in 2010, but better late than never, right? Here is how the bread, which is famous for turning out extraordinary toast, turned out in our kitchens:

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Leslie of Lethally Delicious baked this recipe as rolls, and found the flavor to be "rich and deep." Read Leslie's post: BBA - Multigrain Bread Extraordinare

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The fourth time's a charm, and after a few failed attempts at making the soaker for this bread, Jessica of The Singleton in the Kitchen, with brown rice on hand, found the bread easy enough to make. As for the taste: she didn't find it to be "bread nirvana" but she reports that the toast was a pleasant way to begin her day. Her post: BBA S&S: Loafin' Around

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Natalia of Gatti, Fili e Farina
loved this bread so much that she got hungry for some when she was writing her post.
her post: BBA Slow and Steady: Multigrain Extraordinaire

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Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table thought that her bread wasn't much in the looks department (I beg to differ!) but loved the taste. Her family enjoyed this bread as toast, grilled cheese and sandwiches. Her post: BBA: Mulitgrain Bread Extraordinaire

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I baked this bread and posted it before the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge. In fact, this bread is what convinced me to purchase Reinhart's book (I baked the bread from versions of the recipe I found online) See my post here. The bread makes such great toast that it's worth keeping little bits of cooked brown rice and other grains in the freezer so that the bread can be baked on short notice.

Oat Bran Broom Bread

As part of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, I've baked many of Peter Reinhart's bread recipes. As much as I enjoy the bread from that book, I really love the opportunity to bake from one of his other, later, books too. In fact, I bought Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads book first, and it was my companion for many of my early forays into bread-baking.

One of the loaves from the whole grains book is called Oat Bran Broom Bread, an unusual bread name, to be sure. Reinhart calls this "broom bread" because it has a ton of soluble and insoluble fiber, and, although he gets a bit more specific in his explanation, that's all I'm going to say on that subject! The recipe was appealing to me because of its inclusion of whole wheat flour and oat bran with some whole flaxseeds thrown into the mix.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the recipe, along with some stunning pictures of finished loaves, here.

- The bread uses the indirect method, whereby two different pre-fermented doughs are prepared, and then held for minimum time periods of 8 and 12 hours. The long rest time helps to break down the whole ingredients; in this way the nutrients from the grains and seeds are accessible in the finished product.

- My daughter J.D.E. did all of the hands-on work for this loaf - measuring, mixing, kneading and shaping - entirely by herself.


- I set the oven up to use Peter Reinhart's steam method: put hot water in a metal pan, then place in an oven preheated to 425 - hotter than the baking temperature - and reduce the temperature when you put the loaf in the oven. That's how we started, at any rate. When we put the bread into the oven I forgot to reduce the temperature to 350 degrees, so it baked for 20 minutes at 425 until I remembered my mistake. The bread got very dark on top, but we immediately tented it with foil to forestall further browning.

- Thank goodness bread baking is a forgiving process; the bread survived the excess oven temps with just the dark top to show for it.


the verdict:

This bread was good sliced straight from the loaf! It also made very good toast. Great job on this loaf, J.D.E.!!

I'm submitting this bread to Yeastspotting, a fabulously inspiring round-up of yeasty goodness that is posted each Friday. Click on over to see some wonderful breads.