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Laurie Colwin's bread recipe

"Erin Nesmith" <enesmith@earthlink.net>
Sat, 9 Sep 2000 18:45:11 -0500
v100.n062.15
Hello,

Here's a bread recipe from Laurie Colwin's book, "More Home Cooking."  I 
tried with and met with a fair amount of success.  This is just how it's 
written, sorry for the odd format.

1. An hour before you go to bed, fling 1 cup of oatmeal in your blender and 
grind.  Put the oatmeal, 1 cup of wheat germ, 6 cups of white flour, 1 
tablespoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of yeast in a large bowl.  About 3 
cups of tepid water will make up the dough.  Knead it, roll it in flour, 
and put it right back in the bowl you mixed it up in.  Cover the bowl and 
go to sleep.

2. The next morning, make the coffee and knock down the bread.  Divide it 
in half and put each half into a buttered bread tin (you can butter them 
the night before and stick them in the fridge to save time).  Cover the 
tins with a tea towel and go to work.

3. When you come home, heat the oven to 400F., paint the top of the loaves 
with milk (this is a frill and need not be done, but it makes a 
nice-looking crust), and bake for about 40 minutes, turning once.  It is 
hard to describe the nutty, buttery taste of this bread, and it is worth 
the 15 minutes of work it took you to make it.

My notes:  I made this without grinding up the oats first and it did fine. 
I was wondering about the lack of sugar and fat in this recipe, but the 
bread worked okay without them.  The loaves have a nice crackly top crust 
(I brushed it with half and half) with lots of fish eyes and a beautiful 
dark brown exterior.  The texture is good, lots of little even holes 
inside.  The bread tastes pretty hearty, but not too dry, and I think I'll 
try it with a smear of country mustard and some roast beef.

For the first rise, I let it go 12 hours, and I let it go 3 hours for the 
second rise, baking it when the loaves rose to the top edges of the bread 
pans.  The first time I tried to make this bread, I must have let it rise 
for too long on the second rise (more like 10 hours), because it rose over 
the edges of the bread pans, collapsed, and blopped onto my oven floor in 
big globs.  (I let my bread rise in a cold oven.)  There wasn't much 
ovenspring with this bread, but then with only 1/2 teaspoon yeast and the 
wheat germ and oats, I guess you couldn't expect much.

I am still trying to figure out how to keep the dough from drying out 
during the long rises.  I've oiled the dough and covered it with a damp 
dish towel, but it still got a skin.  Maybe I'll branch out to oiled 
plastic wrap, or a shower cap over the bowl.  Any suggestions?

Erin Nesmith