For some of my regular readers, especially my sourdough bakers, you might recognize this recipe as a version of my previous,
multi-grain sourdough bread. When I developed the former recipe, I had lots of leftover oatmeal around and was searching for a way to use it up. My son was younger and didn’t have quite the appetite he has now; I made this recipe almost once a week just by saving the breakfast leftovers.
Recently I realized I wasn’t making this bread very often. My toddler turned three recently and he just isn’t leaving me the leftovers he once did, he’s a growing boy! After several weeks, I realized that I missed baking this bread and I wanted to develop basically the same recipe but starting with uncooked oatmeal (though cooked harder grains, like rice or quinoa, or spent grains if you’re a home beer brewer, would also be a good substitute in this recipe – I would not recommend using uncooked varieties of those grains as they wouldn’t soften enough and you’d have crunchy bites throughout – yuck!). - it softens as it soaks overnight. If you experiment with using other grain varieties, let me know how it turns out!
This bread, because of it’s inclusion of milk, butter, eggs and honey, makes a lovely, soft bread perfect for sandwiches. It slices beautifully.
Keep in mind when making this recipe that I developed it to make for a big baking day – it makes four loaves. I generally stash two in the freezer and keep two out (we normally eat at least half of one in the first few hours after it’s baked!). If you want to make fewer loaves, just cut the recipe in half.
Whole Wheat Oatmeal Sourdough Bread
makes four loaves
The night before you are going to make bread, combine in a medium sized bowl:
- 3 cups of uncooked oatmeal (I use the old fashioned variety, though steel-cut or oat groats would also work. Do not use instant or quick-cook)
- 4 Cups Whole Wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 4 Cups milk plus 2 Tablespoons Whey (if using pasteurized milk, if using raw, just use the milk) OR 4 cups of yogurt
Mix together until it looks like a thick, wet oatmeal. When you stir it you almost want it to make a smacking sound, if that makes sense. Cover with plastic wrap and leave on your counter overnight.
Also, feed your
sourdough starter and leave it out overnight. If you keep a small quantity of starter around, make sure you feed it enough to have the required quantity for tomorrow (5 cups)
The next day, add to the grain/whole wheat mixture:
- 1/2 cup honey or maple syrup
- 5 cups of sourdough starter*
- 5 Tablespoons butter, softened
- 5 eggs
*My sourdough starter is fed a 1:1 ratio of flour to water and is the consistency of pancake batter. If your starter is thicker, you may need to add less flour than indicated below.
Stir to combine.
Add in enough bread flour to make a soft dough. I added in about 3 cups in the bowl, stirring with a spoon, and then turned it out to a floured board where I probably added in about 1 cup more. Depending on your starter, you might be adding a little more or a little less.
Knead dough for about 5 minutes. You want it to be soft and slightly sticky. Don’t add too much flour so that it is dry.
Allow to rest on your counter for ten minutes. Then, add
Knead for 2 minutes more before forming into a ball and placing in a greased bowl to rise. Cover loosely with plastic wrap.
Dough will double in bulk, about three to four hours.
Once doubled, turn out onto a lightly floured board, cut in half and then in half again. Form into four loaves.
What I do – Using the loaf pan as your guide, gently pat each loaf’s worth of dough into a rectangle about the length of your pan, then fold it onto itself in thirds (folding the bottom third up and over the second third of the dough, sealing slightly, than folding those two layers onto the top third, sealing slightly again) after each fold, before placing in two greased loaf pans.
The dough will be quite sticky, soft and loose. If you need a small amount of flour on your board to prepare the loaves, feel free but move quickly with light fingers and with little extra kneading to form loaves. It should only take about thirty seconds to form each loaf.
Allow to rise until almost doubled in bulk, about an hour and half.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once loaves have risen, slash top vertically. If you want some extra crunch, brush the top with egg white or water and sprinkle heavily with sesame or sunflower seeds. Place loaves in oven and immediately reduce temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Bake for 20 minutes, then turn 180 degrees in oven before baking for 20-30 minutes more.
Remove from oven, allow to cool briefly, then remove from baking pans to continue cooling. Wait at least an hour to cut.
Enjoy!
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Sarah, I really enjoy your blog and will try to make the starter so I can make the bread. I also love the Decalolog sp? for daily life by Pope John Paul. I have not seen it before and I have read a lot of his writings. Just so you know. I might put it on my blog. It would be a good reminder daily for me.
Oooh, this looks yummy! I've printed it out and plan to try it out soon. Thanks for sharing!
I am very intrigued about a starter! And I've recently begun to make bread. I'll have to try this.
Yvonne
Hi Sara, I've been making a whole wheat sourdough that I'm not at all happy with… so I'm going to try yours on Monday, baking day! Do you have any other all whole wheat sourdough recipes that you like? (PS–I'm a Catholic mama, fan of E Foss, Holy Experience, Nourishing Traditions, and I even have your Savoring Spain and Portugal cookbook and love it too!)
Great looking bread! I'll have to reduce your recipe down, I can't imagine making four loaves for two people, lol!
A few weeks ago, I added cooked short grain brown rice to some whole wheat rolls I made. It worked really well. The rice gets soft but holds up, making the bread chewy but in a good way.
Looks incredibly delicious, but I am stymied because the link to the definitive guide to sour dough did not work for me.
Oh I definitely have to try this! I make sourdough all the time for my girls and they love it, but this enriched sourdough looks like it would make even more fabulous sandwiches and toast.
This sounds excellent! I am going to go prepare the "night before" ingredients right now!
I made this recipe, love the flavor and ingredients. But I've yet to make a sourdough bread that isn't super dense. I was hoping for a bread like your photo, but still very thick and dense. Any ideas?
I really like the looks of this bread! I bet it makes for a great sandwich.
I made it! The texture was great. Not quite as inexpensive as my flour/water sourdough breads, but then again, eating those can be like penance sometimes!! This was so good, and my one year old loved it. He won't generally eat my other sourdough. I didn't have bread flour so I used all whole wheat flour with a cup of vital wheat gluten thrown in. Sometimes I feel like that's cheating… but hey, it made it stick together and rise beautifully! Thanks for the recipe!
Love your site, I have made this bread twice and it has turned out quite well. Much better than the other sourdough recipe I was using. Only thing is I’m cutting your recipe in half and using sprouted flour instead of the bread flour. When you say you added 3 cups in the bowl and then another cup on the floured board I figured I’d need to add much less since I cut the recipe in half. But I end up adding another 6 to 7 cups and that’s a lot more than you added for twice as much bread. Is it just because it is sprouted flour?
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