I haven't actually had a chance to slice into these loaves and try them yet, so I can't report on the final results. But the loaves baked up beautifully and the little piece of dough that I tasted before they went into the oven was delicious! So, given that, I have high hopes for the bread itself and am really looking forward to trying it once we've finished our current loaf of bread.

This is a pretty straight-forward "faux" sourdough with a few quick oats standing in for some of the flour. I say "faux" sourdough because, although you make an overnight sponge with sourdough starter, you also add dry yeast to the dough when mixing it up, so it rises and it handled more like a standard non-sourdough bread. That said, I'm sure you could make it as a "true" sourdough without the commercial yeast if you really wanted to. You'd just have to give it a much longer rising/fermentation time and adjust how you handled it a little bit.

Sourdough Oatmeal Bread

Slightly adapted from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

Ingredients

Sponge

• 1 c. (~225g) active (fresh/fed) sourdough starter
• 1 c. water @ 40°C (~105°F)
• 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour¹

Dough

• 1 c. water @ 50°C (~125°F)
• 1/2 c. skim milk powder
• 2 Tbsp. honey
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast (or 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast)
• 1 c. quick oats
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ~4 c. all-purpose flour²

Directions

1. Combine the starter, water, and flour in a large bowl, mix well, cover, and allow to ferment for 8-10 hours. (Use cold water if you would like a longer, slower fermentation.)
2. Stir down the sponge and mix in the water, milk powder, and honey.
3. Add the yeast.
4. Add the oatmeal, sugar, salt, and baking soda and stir to combine.
5. Add theh flour, 1/4 c. at a time, until the dough comes together into a nice ball. Mixing may be done either by hand or with an electric mixer using a dough hook. (You may need more than 4 c. of flour, but don't go crazy!)
6. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead by hand for 10-20 minutes (or ~10 minutes in an electric mixter with a dough hook).
7. Shape the dough into a ball, cover, and allow to rest for ~10 minutes.
8. Knead the dough for a few strokes, then divide into two roughly equal portions.
9. Shape each portion into a ball, cover, and rest for another 5 minutes or so.
10. Shape your loaves as desired and place in greased loaf pans³.
11. Cover and allow to rise at room temperature for ~75 minutes.
12. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F).
13. Slash the loaves as desired and then bake at 200°C (400°F) for ~20 minutes.
14. Reduce heat to 180°C (350°F) and bake for another 15-20 minutes.
15. If desired, brush the crust of the loaf with some melted butter. This will make the crust softer and shinier.
16. Turn loaves out of tins and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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¹ I used AP flour here because I was trying to use up the leftover sponge from the buckwheat bread that I'd made the day previously. However, if I were to make this bread with my usual whole wheat starter, I would've used WW flour (or possibly a 1:1 mix of WW to AP). ^Back
2 Clayton calls for "approximately" 2-4 c. of flour here. I ended up using nearly 5 c. before my dough was behaving itself and didn't seem like a wet, sticky mess. Use the recipe as a guideline, but listen to the dough. ^Back
3 Clayton recommends two 8x4" loaf pans for this recipe, but since I ended up using significantly more flour than the recipe called for, I decided to make two slightly larger loaves (one 9x5" and one 8.5x4.5"). ³