I made some delicious beef bourguignon last week and realized partway through making it that we were all out of bread. I knew I didn't have enough time to make a proper yeasted loaf at that point¹, so I gave this chemically-leavened bran bread a try instead. It was pretty good and I actually liked it a lot better than I thought I would. That said, the batter produced by the recipe as written was way too dry! It was basically a dough. I had to add a bunch of extra milk and some sourdough starter to even get it to the point of being a thick batter. Having made those adjustments though, it was great!

Bran-Nut Bread

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

Ingredients

• 300g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 2 c. wheat bran
• 1 2/3 c. milk²
• 125g sourdough discard @ 100% hydration
• 1 large egg
• 2 Tbsp. butter, melted
• 2 Tbsp. molasses
• 1 c. walnuts, chopped
• 1 c. currants or raisins (optional)

Directions

1. Grease and flour a loaf pan. Use a larger one if you plan to include the dried fruit, smaller if you don't.
2. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F).
3. Combine flour and salt and sift in baking powder.
4. Mix in bran.
5. In a large measuring cup, beat egg with milk, starter, butter, and molasses.
6. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir to combine. Adjust consistency with a little more milk if needed.
7. Mix in walnuts and currants (if using).
8. Pour into prepared loaf tin and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes.
9. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 45-60 minutes.
10. Turn out onto wire rack to cool.

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¹ I probably could have made the yeasted batter bread out of the same book. But I'd made that one before and I wanted to try something new! ^Back
2 I'm not sure exactly how much milk I put in. I started with the 1 1/3 c. called for in the recipe and mixed the batter up as specified, but ended up going back and adding a bunch more milk at the end when the batter proved to be way too dry. I think I probably added at least an extra 1/3 c., possibly a bit more. Use enough milk to make a thick batter. ^Back