Whole Wheat Bread with Flax and Oat Bran

I'm a little bit obsessed with making yeast bread lately. During the past couple of weeks, I baked a loaf of King Arthur Flour Classic 100% Whole Wheat Bread which turned out so delicious that I didn't have time to take any picture before the whole loaf was gone. I also baked a loaf of no-knead rosemary bread from my tiny rosemary plant on my window sill. I need to experiment with the proportion of liquid/flour/herb a little more before posting the recipe here.



I also baked Peter Reinhart's Oat Bran Broom Bread from his amazing whole grain bread cookbook. The reason he called it broom bread was that it has so much fiber it could clean you up...



The instructions to make the bread were on two pages - not including picture. They involve making a soaker (soaking grains and flour in water and salt) at least 12 hours in advance, a biga (fermenting minimal amount of yeast with flour and water) for at least 8 hours ahead. Then all are kneaded together with additional flour, liquid, oil and sweetener (I used Agave nectar) before 2 rises. I won't even try to write down the whole process (which is actually simple - it just requires a bit of planning) in this post.



But if you are serious about baking wonderful 100% whole grain bread, get this book. The bread came out soft and flavorful even with all that fiber from oat bran and ground flax seed. And with additional fat and sugar, the bread didn't go stale as fast as leaner bread. Five days after baking, the bread was still pretty good toasted.