I had already decided that working from modern yeast was wrong, but didn’t really want to take the time to play with wild yeasts. (I’ve done that, even semi-recently, when I was trying some of Jacqui Wood’s recipes, so it will be discussed with those.) So I opted for sourdough. But I thought that in keeping with the idea of a middle class Anglo-Saxon bread, I’d use whole wheat flour.
It made a more unusual sourdough. The whole wheat flour I have on hand is quite rough and branny, so it was a speckled culture, and quite solid-seeming. That took several days to work. (Another reason I didn’t opt for wild yeast; in winter our house is quite cold. Yeast gets very sleepy and wants to hibernate!)
Sadly, I either was out of oat flour, or didn’t dig deep enough in the chest freezer, so then I had to grind some flour to actually make the bread. Fortunately I have some oat groats handy right now. I ground some of those, with just a small handful of rolled oats in the grinding. To try and balance the texture. (Okay, I was impatient, and wanted it to be flour NOW.)
Since I’d decided when I made the first loaf, that this was more of a feast day bread, with the inclusion of egg, honey, milk, and fine wheaten flour rather than a more workaday loaf, I felt I’d continue with the use of some milk.
I warmed some milk, and added it to the oat flour. Because the sour dough looked thicker than my starter usually appears, I wasn’t too sure of how much liquid I’d end up needing in this recipe, so decided I would let the dough itself tell me.
I combined the moistened oat flour and the sourdough starter, and added some honey and an egg. I seasoned it with a bit of salt, but rather than the lard suggested by Savelli, I used some duck fat.
I decided that because I’d used the whole wheat flour in my starter, and the oat flour was already being incorporated, I’d use unbleached all-purpose flour for the rest of my flour. (Since this was ‘middle class’ bread, this would give me a higher quality grade of flour overall, with less bran.)
I stirred the mixture as much as I could to incorporate the flour, and then switched to kneading to work in more.
The dough did rise fairly well, though not as much as the first version. I’m not sure if that was due to temperature difference in my kitchen between the two baking days, or the difference between the commercial baking yeast and my sourdough. Usually my sourdough leavens quite well. (In warm weather it can be very exciting!) Did the whole wheat make it a stodgier culture? But all in all it ended up a comparable loaf. Rather than sprinkling it with oats before baking, I strewed some flax seeds over the top.
The end result was marginally oatier in taste. Again, it was a soft crumbly loaf. It had neither the sturdiness of a flatbread, nor the strength of a totally wheaten loaf. Perhaps that would make it a pleasant alternative on a feast day? Where I wouldn’t expect it to be useful for scooping up a stew, or need it to last a little longer. A smaller baking that would get eaten, and relished as ‘fancier’, in a single sitting?
[I was interested to note that it really shone for lunch the next day, toasted with cheese!]
I’m not sure if I’ll bother playing further with this recipe/idea. I tend to feel I should either swerve towards a flatbread/unleavened bread if I’m going to incorporate much oat flour, or switch out to a wheaten bread, if I’m using leavening. And I already have a bunch of other recipes I feel like looking into…
So, maybe if I play further with Savelli, I’ll look at other types of recipes. Though I’ll confess, the longer I look at the cookbook, the more I’m just perplexed by some of her choices. “Suggested by a salve”? Isn’t that a bit like saying ‘it’s an ingredient in Tiger Balm, so I thought I’d put it in the soup’?
But we’ll see where I go next. Actually, I feel a rant coming on…
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