Brown oatmeal bread

I experimented with a new bread recipe from the book today, brown oatmeal bread, as Elizabeth David says ' oatmeal on its own would make a very flat loaf, but a small proportion mixed with a strong brown or white flour makes excellent bread with a wonderful rich flavour." p. 282

Elizabeth uses an inverted ovenproof ceramic bowl to bake the bread in the oven, this is called 'undercover bread baking' (see p.303) this is an old cottage bakers method for getting lots of steam into the bread and for making a good crust.

I have to say, as you can see from the photo, the bread wasn't a 'high riser' but this was partly my fault as I mistakenly used rolled oats instead of oatmeal flour - d'oh! Also, to quote Elizabeth again: "Although the volume of this loaf will be much increased by using the above under-cover method of baking, oatmeal bread never rises as much as a loaf made entirely with wheat flour. The crust, thogh, is particularly successful" p.282

Brown oatmeal bread p. 282
As always I use all organic ingredients where possible

400 gms wholemeal bread flour
120 gms medium oatmeal (I only had rolled oats and I think that was my 'mistake')
15 gm compressed fresh yeast
15 - 20 gms salt
1 - 2 tablespoons pouring cream
1/4 litre warm water

Large oven proof ceramic bowl and baking sheet or oven proof ceramics platter for baking.

Mix the two flours in your bowl, with the salt, pop into a warm oven for around 7 minutes to warm through. Mix yeast to a cream with a little warm water and cream. When your flour is warm, add the yeast mixture and stir into the flour. Add the rest of your cream and warm water.

Mix to a fairly moist dough and leave to rise for a couple of hours. Use the rising directions in the Basic bread recipe.

Break down the dough, knead it briefly, about 3 - 5 minutes, using a little extra oatmeal to dry it out if necessary (Ed: mine was very, very wet, probably because of the rolled oats instead of oatmeal so I added quite a bit more wheatmeal). Form it into a round loaf, folds tucked underneath. Turn it upside down into a floured wooden or ceramic bowl and leave to rise, or prove, for a second time of approximately 45 minutes.

Turn your risen bread onto an ovenproof earthenware platter, bottom side down. Cut six fairly deep criss-cross cuts, with a sharp knife, so that the top of the loaf is chequered.  As soon as the cuts open up, which should be almost immediately, put the loaf in the oven.

The next bit is really interesting because you use the bowl, inverted over the top of your dough and platter as a cover when baking the bread. This keeps the loaf moist and helps it to rise higher, its Robert May's French bread system of the book, p.313.

If possible bake by the undercover method at 230oC leaving the loaf covered for 20 minutes, then uncover and gradually reduce temperatures over the next 40 minutes. Elizabeth doesn't say how gradually so I used the method in the Basic bread.

Even with the wrong flour, the loaf turned out well and was scrumptious, nutty and very flavoursome. I'll try again with the proper flour next time and see if there is any difference.