The best mysteries have twists and double crosses … bread can too.

In my world there are two kinds of bread bakers: there are those of us who sweat blood over the details, follow the recipe to the fourth even fifth decimal point, take the temperature of the dough, obsess over the exact ingredients. And then there are … well, the rest of us. We can’t read and when we do, we often decide to not read a detail with “I think I didn’t see that.” Technically speaking then their’s a continum between both those extremes. If I were to peg myself, I say I’m a “slider”. There have/are times when I actually follow the recipe. Then there are other times when I follow a recipe … except I play with ingredients. Other times I start the recipe and everything under the sun seems to conspire to go change things around.

First Mystery: Who’s Kitchen of the Month?

Kitchen of the Month is Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms.

Now, this kitchen table is a very wild place where there are Babes without rules there’s bound to be wildness. There was some twisting, I’m not sure there may have been some hoola hoops involved but I’m sure there was and is and always will be wonderful bread where ever the Babes gather. Elle has us twisting a very happy twist!

Second Mystery: Where’d she find the recipe?

Farine (that’s the name of her blog too)

Farine called these Morning Cuddles. They do have lots of lovely oatmeal in them so I can see why you can enjoy them for breakfast! I enjoyed them for breakfast lunch and dinner. Thank you Farine!

I baked this one twice. First baking … was gone in two days, I shared only 6 with a neighbor – this recipe makes a lot. Second baking … thanks to a freezer, I’m sharing them with my sister and Dad visiting. The second time I baked these I used the refrigerator to retard the dough overnight and baked them in the morning and enjoyed them with a great salad for lunch.

One of my favorite things about these was the walnut dust used for topping. Don’t think that you have to use any one nut. I think just about any nut you enjoy will be wonderful with these, I’m thinking peanuts, then I’m thinking hazelnuts. Babes used savory to sweet on these. I really enjoyed the walnut and salty dust. Still I realize that the options are endless and I don’t just mean the nut ingredient and I really need to give these a big ingredient twist next time I’m baking.

One ingredient I won’t twist is the oatmeal and the coarse grinding. It gave the dough a wonderful nobby texture on my hands that I enjoyed; some might not enjoy such but I found it fun and different.

Oatmeal Twists

Recipe By: Pat: based on Farine’s Morning Cuddles
Yield: 8 to 18. Make smaller sizes for snacks or appetizers. Make them bigger for a sandwich bun.

Farine of the blog Farine made the cutest breads and called them Morning Cuddles. Elle twisted Farine’s recipe and added buttermilk and some butter. I think Farine’s original idea with these for breakfast comes from all the wonderful oatmeal in them and indeed they are a really nice breakfast roll.

Starter/Poolish

700 g sourdough starter
OR Poolish, just not both
350 g all-purpose flour
350 g water
2 teaspoons yeast
Dough
320 g all-purpose flour
230 g whole wheat flour, used organic
1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
115 g rolled oats, coarsely ground in a food processor
15 g salt
1 1/4 cup water – I used potato water, 300 grams
1/4 cup buttermilk, 64 grams
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled – 56 grams
100 g pecans – I used walnuts, chopped – 1 cup

1. If mixing and using Poolish – without sourdough starter – Sit 3 hours on counter, stir down, cover and put in fridge overnight.

2. After overnight in the fridge: Mix the flours together with the yeast, oats and salt. Stir the water, buttermilk and butter into the starter. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the starter mixture until a soft dough forms. Let sit 10 minutes. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead in additional flour if needed until dough is tacky but not sticky.

3. Knead in the walnuts.  Here’s my caution on the nuts:  If you leave them too big, they tear the dough when you roll it into the snakes to twist.  Just pinch it back together and/or chop your nuts a little finer. Shape into a ball and put dough ball into oiled rising bowl or container, turning dough to coat with the oil. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk. This might take 2 hours or 6. (Also fine to cover and let sit overnight in the fridge, then let rise until doubled on the counter the next day.) I did it both ways.

4. When dough has doubled, turn out onto lightly floured board. Shape into a log and cut into two pieces. Return one piece of the dough to the rising bowl and cover.

5. Shape the second piece of dough on the board into a log and cut into 8 pieces, each about 100 g. Cut each piece in half and shape each piece into a snake and twist two pieces together a a time or two, then place twist on a parchment or silicone mat lined baking sheet.

6. Repeat with remaining 7 (100 g) pieces. You will have eight twists. Take the remaining large (about 800 g) piece of dough and repeat the shaping into a log, cutting into 8 pieces, cutting those in half and shaping into twists. You will finish with 16 twists set out on parchment or silicon mat covered baking sheets. Cover twists and let rise until doubled in bulk. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F when twists are almost doubled.

7. Uncover, glaze with buttermilk with clean pastry brush. If desired sprinkle with finely chopped pecans, or preferred seeds or with sea salt.  I tried one without glazing with the buttermilk – seemed infinitely better with the buttermilk glaze.

8. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. If browning too rapidly, turn down the oven temperature. Turn the pans back to front and bake another 10 – 15 minutes or until breads are 180 degrees inside. Cool on a rack then serve.

9. Variations: When you knead in the pecans you can knead in dried fruit like dried cranberries or diced prunes, apricots or dates to make a breakfast twist. If you prefer savory you can knead in herbs and/or Parmesan cheese and/or seeds. This bread loves to have you make your own combinations, so other nuts can also be used in place of the pecans or with them. I made my second batch without any nuts, seeds, fruit or herbs and they were yummy, too.

So I’d call myself a “slider”. What kind of a baker are you? Bake this bread with us and become a Bread Baking Buddy and tell us. Bake the bread, take some photos, blog (or not), send your link and photos to Kitchen of the Month – Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms – and if you can do that by the 29th, Elle will have you in the round up!

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