Oats and Cranberry bread

While we Indians have always loved our food, the current fixation with international ingredients that don't cost an arm and leg is quite difficult to find. Those lovely cheeses, hazelnuts are not really for regular cooking. However, one ingredient that is still lots affordable is Cranberry. While it is much more expensive than raisin, I normally keep the dried ones handy as a snack as it does not cloyingly sweet taste that the 'kismis' we get here. I was looking for a recipe that would use a fair amount of this and found this lovely recipe by Dan Lepard Find the Original Recipe here: I made a few minor substitutions and there was a lovely flavourful bread that landed on our breakfast plates today. I liked the bread plain with a cup of tea. But my kids preferred a sweeter version so they topped the slices with chocolate sauce and enjoyed it

Ingredients

75g instant oats, plus extra for the crust (the original recipe calls for rolled oats, I used the quick cooking ones instead)
175g dried cranberries
450g strong white flour (I added 3 tbsp of Vital wheat gluten and topped the rest with maida as I don't get bread flour here)
1½ tsp salt
½ tsp all spice powder
1 tsp sugar
50g unsalted butter
1 tsp instant dry yeast
Oil, for kneading
Method

Put the cranberries in a bowl and add 375ml boiling water. Leave for 10 minutes, then add the instant oats to the mixture and leave it until the mixture is warm.
Mix flour, salt, spice and sugar in another bowl, rub in the butter, toss the yeast through, then add the oats and berries, and mix well. Leave to stand for 10 minutes.
I tipped this mixture into my KitchenAid stand mixer and kneaded the dough for about 5 minutes till the dough started pulling together. Then I covered it with a towel and let it rest. There are two more of this knead and rest cycles. I kneaded for 5 minutes after a 10 minutes interval. I did the final knead by hand. The dough is sticky so its good to oil your hands before kneading the dough. Roll up the dough in an oiled bowl and rest the dough for 30 minutes. I covered with a tea towel.
You will see the dough rising. At the end of 30 minutes rise, shape the dough into a rectangle, roll up tightly and squeeze, seam-side down, into a large, loaf tin. My load tin is non stick so I just coated it with a thin film of oil. Use parchment paper for metal loaf tins. Leave for an hour until risen by half. Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan-assisted). Brush the top of the loaf with water, press on a handful of oats, cut a gash down the middle and bake for 50 minutes.
Tap the bottom of the loaf and when you hear the deep hollow sound, you know that the bread has been baked enough. Cover with a towel and let it cool completely before slicing.

Note: The bread browns very quickly on the top; the original recipe says that its typical for a fruit bread.

Garlic Pull Apart Rolls

Making your breakfast before and having it on a lazy Saturday morning is something you can do easily if you bake... I used this strategy yesterday and made some Garlic Pull Apart Rolls. They are again from Monika's blog.

Its a fairly simple recipe and since I wanted to use wholewheat - I used 2 cups of wholewheat in this recipe...This is Monika's recipe with my notes and pics inbetween :)

Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
•All Purpose Flour - 3 cups (I used 1 cup Maida and 2 cups Aashirwad Whole Wheat Atta - the strategy i use to measure is scoop the flour into the measuring cup, tap it once and even it out with a spatula)
• Warm Water- 1 cup (tipd keep 20-30 ml more water as atta needs more water - warm the entire quantity and keep 1 cup aside. Use this first and the rest if required
• Dry Active Yeast- 1tbsp (easily available Eagle Brand)
• Salt – 1tsp
• Sugar- 2 tbps
• Olive Oil- 3 tbps
• 1 tbsp milk for basting the buns before baking
For the garlic filling
• Salted Butter- 50grams
• Garlic- 6-7 finely chopped
• Parsley and Thyme – 3 tbps (chopped)
• 3/4 tsp chilli flakes


Method:

• Mix abt 2 tbsp of warm water (from the one cup mentioned), sugar and yeast together and leave aside for 5 minutes till it looks a little frothy. Thats when the yeast has been activated and is ready to use
• Mix the above starter with dough and knead lightly till everything comes together as a dough. No need to over knead it.
• Add oil to it and knead for another 5 minutes till it starts springing back
• Keep the dough for resting covered by cling film for about 30-45 mins till it almost doubles depending on the weather. (My dough doubled in just 20 mintues.)

• While the dough is proofing u can make the garlic spread ready by mixing all the ingredients together at room temperature.
• After its doubled in size, knock down to remove the air and roll in to a half an inch thickness sheet. Use dry flour to prevent it from sticking
• Apply the garlic filling/spread evenly on the dough and roll the dough from one end to another.
• Using a knife or a thread cut it into 8-10 rolls of equal size (I used a combination of thread and pizza cutter for the cutting) and got 14 rolls or so
• Line them in a greased loaf pan, spread the left over garlic spread on top and sprinkle the sesame seeds on top.

• leave it for proofing again for 30 mins or so
• Apply egg wash (optional) (I used a milk wash)and bake it in a preheated oven at 180C for about 20-25 mins
(If you are using a milk wash, top the baked rolls with some butter for a soft crust, empty over a wire rack after 5 minutes of cooling in the pan else the rolls get stuck)
• Pull them apart and eat fresh and warm.

Update on 25/Nov/2014 I made these rolls again with stone ground coarse organic wheat flour in the same proportion mentioned instead of store brought one. The difference to the texture of the bread is to be seen to be believed. Its definitely worth the effort to buy grains and mill your flour. The filling this time had the coriander-mint chutney, grated carrot, dried basil. I was a little sceptical of how the combination of mint-bail-coriander-garlic and carrot would work - but they really pair well. Try out this variation too, but make sure that the chutney is on the drier side...