Since the recipe comes to us from the ancestors using volume measurements, I offered to try to translate it to using weights instead of volumes. https://onlineconversion.com/cooking.htm says 6 cups of flour is, near as makes no difference, 750 grams, and 2.25 cups of oats is 225g. The 3 cups of water is tricksy though, at 710grams the recipe looks like 95%ish hydration based on the flour weight, but oats are going to soak up a lot of that.
There are a lot of pictures here, if you prefer the album: https://imgur.com/a/APf30qp
Plan A
Originally, I planned to make it pretty close to the original recipe (halved to fit in one pan,) but since the original recipe has all the water being added to the oats, I wanted to see how much H2O was free to combine with the flour. So, I soaked the oats alone, with the intention of draining them and weighing the soaking liquid. I guess I left the soak a little longer than Great-Aunt Beatrice intended.
Plan B
Having gone from a theoretically 95% hydration to a potential 1% hydration, I changed the plan. With apologies to Grandma Mabel, I decided to mix her ingredients with a fairly standard no knead loaf.
600g bread flour, 70% hydration (nice,) mix by hand, autolyze 20 minutes
15g salt, 3.5g instant yeast, 2 heaping tablespoons dark brown sugar which I weighed but forgot to write down, 1.5 tablespoons canola oil, and all the soaked oats (115g pre-soak) and the reserved soaking liquid (almost a whole tablespoon!) just dumped on top during autolyze.
Fold
and pincer
and fold some more
Then rest a bit.
I gave it two more folds in the first hour of bulk and ended up pretty bready
Exactly three hours and fourteen minutes after the mix, I’m willing to call it doubled.
Lightly floured surface
Still pretty slack
Took a shaping fold pretty well
And rolled up
I didn’t get a good picture of tensioning, but it tightened up a bit and got into the pan eventually
Gave it a pat with a wet hand, cover and proof 1 hour while preheating oven to 450f
One more little pat with water, and into the hot box, added about a cup of boiling water to a preheated skillet on the bottom.
25 minutes later, rotate, reduce to 425, pretty happy with the spring.
25 minutes after that, getting a little dark
It tapped ok, I still gave it 5 more minutes with the oven off
a little dark, but I don’t mind
it even has an ear
Cooled overnight, Cat Tax
The crumb was nice and moist, and sliced well
There was a little bit of doughiness on the bottom, I put it down to a cold kitchen during proof.
Next time, I’ll try to stick closer to Goody Prudence's recipe, but it came out well. If I was to make this again, I would: Add %15-%20 whole wheat/rye/spelt or something for flavor, sprinkle oats on top before it goes in the oven for flavor and crunch, and to cover any shaping sins, and maybe do the second half of the bake a bit cooler.
Any ideas, tips or things I am missing?
Thanks and en guete!
