Farmgirl's Oatmeal Toasting Bread, slightly corrupted
Like many of you, I am a huge fan of Farmgirl and love reading about her exploits — both in and out of the kitchen. Unlike most of you, however, I am in a superSecretBreadBakingCabal with her where we trade recipes that are in beta, inspire each other and engage in other such superSecretBreadBakingCabal behavior. Well, let me tell you, membership has its privileges.
Like this.
See that picture over there? (yes, the one with the lovely golden bread) That, my friends, is Farmgirl's Oatmeal Toasting Bread. That I baked here. Because I have the recipe. And you don't! (uh, errr...was that the outLoud voice? how rude of it!)
Yes, this is the very same recipe that Farmgirl has been promising for quite some time now. I'd say how long, but she might kick me out of our superSecretBreadBakingCabal and that would be a bad thing. Very bad.
Until she does, I can only taunt tempt you with this, my latest, variation. And OMFSM is
it ever good!
Farmgirl's Oatmeal Toasting Bread with a kitchenMage Twist
First, make a batch of kitchenMage's Cinnamon-Spice Sugars (recipe below)
Make Farmgirl's Oatmeal Toasting Bread up to point of shaping loaves.
Once you have divided the dough for loaves, use your hands or a rolling
pin to flatten each portion of dough into a rectangle that's about the
length of your bread pan and an inch or so thick. You may need to roll
the dough, then let it rest and roll it some more to allow the gluten
to relax enough.
Butter two loaf pans. (If you're feeling indulgent, sprinkle the pan with Cinnamon-Spice Sugars, just as if you were flouring it.)
Melt ~1 oz of butter and brush it on dough. Sprinkle liberally with Cinnamon-Spice Sugars. Sprinkle with chopped pecans. Roll up dough into loaves, put in pans. Let loaves rise and bake as usual.
As consolation while you wait for Farmgirl to finally eventually share the bread recipe (which I am sure will be the twelfth of never really soon now) I offer the opinion
that you could do this to your favorite bread recipe and it would be
very good — perhaps not as good as this was, but good nonetheless.
(unless it's the breadForPeopleWhoAreScaredOfKneading recipe that Bittman published, which
is much more limited than that...and not so much of a revelation to me,
I thought everyone knew that you could turn out amazing bread using
that sort of method. But maybe it's just people who are in a superSecretBreadBakingCabal grin I have a corruption of that recipe I want to try as well. Which I think I will get to in a computer minute. Which is geek for soon.)
kitchenMage's Cinnamon-Spice Sugars
I make this in large batches and use it as my general-purpose cinnamon sugar. The mixture of sugars and added spices add a complexity that I think regular cinnamon-sugar is lacking.
brown sugar 7.5 oz / 210gr / 1 cup
white sugar 3.5 oz / 98gr / 1/2 cup (use vanilla sugar if you have it)
cinnamon 3 Tbsp (or so...I've never weighed it, I seldom even measure)
cloves 1 tsp
nutmeg 1 tsp
vanilla powder 1 tsp
Put everything in a jar (a quart is good since it leaves space) and shake well to mix. I store it in the jar, then when I need it, I shake it well and use a handheld sifter to sprinkle it onto things.
Edited to add: Talk about timing. Farmgirl just posted the recipe for the Oatmeal Toasting Bread this morning. Go, read, print, bake. You'll be glad you did.