Day 107: Wheat And Oat Bread

Coming hot off the heels of the oatmeal section, I'm not really sure why this bread wasn't in there, There wasn't anything really out of the ordinary in this bread. The only reason I think it wasn't included in the oat section is because it has both whole-wheat flour and regular flour. Either way this bread turned out pretty well. It's got a great dark color, but the taste is what really shines. through. You get hints from all of the molasses in it while also getting the nice texture from all of the oatmeal. I really liked how this bread turned out, even if it seemed out of place. We're still cooking our way through the blended grains section! 

Day 106: Texas Roadhouse Copycat Rolls

These rolls aren't in the book, but I made them for some family friends and they turned out incredible. For anyone who's actually been to Texas Roadhouse, you'll know how good these rolls are. I didn't have any honey butter handy (which they're usually served with) but they were still delicious. The recipe was actually really easy to make, and fairly straightforward. In the picture, you can see that the rolls opened up a bit, which I wasn't expecting. They're supposed to stay closed and tight, but it doesn't really change anything. I made hot cross buns last weekend, but I forgot to take any pictures and I didn't want to make them again. There is a recipe later in the book for the hot cross buns, so they'll pop up later even when it's a traditionally Easter bread. 

Day 105: Onion Triticale Bread

This bread reminds me a lot of the onion rye bread I made a while ago, and this one is just as delicious as that was. This loaf is a lot bigger than the rye bread was and I love it. There is a ton of onion in this bread, as you'd expect, so it might not be the best for a regular sandwich, but it sure is great to snack on. Triticale is a hybrid between rye and wheat, so it just makes sense that there's a rye bread and a wheat-rye bread. Unfortunately, triticale is hard to find. The recipe called for triticale berries, but I couldn't find those anywhere. I found only one store with triticale, and it was triticale flakes, so that was what I used. I just soaked them overnight and added it to the rest of the ingredient as always. The bread turned out incredible so I'm not sure how it would have been with real triticale berries. If I ever find some maybe I'll make some more triticale bread! 

Day 104: Boston Brown Bread

Another pumpernickel steam bread. I did't realize how common these were until I started baking 50 of them. This recipe is almost exactly like yesterday's bread, only this one was steamed. Yet again it calls for copious amounts of coffee cans to bake in, and a giant stove-top kettle to put them all in. I'm not sure what the point of doing it like that is, but I just the method I used in other steamed breads and steamed it in the oven. It turned out really well and I think this might be my favorite pumpernickel so far. It's really sweet from all of the molasses and the raisins, and the cornmeal helps with the texture a lot. I'm sure there will be even more steamed pumpernickel breads in the future, and so I'll keep comparing them to this one. 

Day 103: Baked Brown Bread

Turns out there are a lot of pumpernickel style breads in this section. I looked through the upcoming recipes and most of them use rye flour, but I didn't expect so many of them to be straight up pumpernickel style. By pumpernickel style I mean dark loaves sweetened with molasses that are usually baked for a long time and are sliced thin. This bread is definitely one of them, even though it's not a true pumpernickel. It's a lot sweeter than yesterday's bread, which I'm totally down for, and has a much better texture as well. This bread also is chock full of walnuts, adding both to the flavor and texture. Apparently, this bread is just like the next bread I'm going to make, only this one is baked and the next one is steamed. I'll compare and contrast them once I've baked it! 

Day 102: Red River Pumpernickel Bread

Red River Cereal is a hot cereal made of wheat, rye, and flax seed, and sounds a lot like oatmeal. Unfortunately, I don't know where to find this stuff. Like Roman Meal before, this cereal is just old and hard to find in places. There are two upsides however: in the recipe, I was given the address to Nieland Marketing Inc. where I can mail them and have them send me some Red River Cereal, if that place still exists 40 years later, and the other upside is that Bob's Red Mill has a solution for everything. I just used their 10 grain cereal that I used for the Roman Meal bread and it all turned out fine. This bread is exceptionally okay. As I was making it seemed a lot sweeter than it actually turned out. It's incredibly dense like other pumpernickel breads, but lacks all of the flavor that other breads have. It was easy to make, took 3 hours to bake, and was just okay.  

Day 101: Dark Grains Bread

This new section is all about blended grains, which just means you take all the flours you used making the breads in the previous sections and throw them all together. I think this section was actually created just for people that tried a bunch of breads and had all that leftover flour with nothing to do with it. This first bread uses buckwheat flour, wheat germ, rye flour, whole-wheat flour, and white flour. The recipe was all pretty straight forward: just mix all the flours and work into the liquid. It eventually came together as a pretty dense and sticky dough, but after rising it just came out perfect. It's got the density of a rye or whole-wheat bread, but a lot of the flavor and texture comes from both the buckwheat flour and the wheat germ. I think this was a great way to start out the blended grain section, and I can't wait for all of the future breads to come!