Oatmeal Rolls

I have seen the Bread Baking Babes around, I have tried a couple of their recipes and been happy with the results,  so when I saw Astrid was one of the Babe's I knew immediately I had to bake some bread for this month's Secret Recipe Club challenge.  Astrid blogs over at Paulchen's Food Blog.  She has a lot of great recipes to share, but I spent most of my time checking out the breads.

After much contemplation,  I finally decided on the Oatmeal Twists, which the Babes baked in June.

Unfortunately due to poor reading skills my bread was a flop.  Somehow I completely overlooked the use of a starter.  When reading the recipe I was slightly confused by direction to "slowly add the dry ingredients to the starter" but I convinced myself the starter was the milk, water and butter I had just mixed together.  Even when I combined all the ingredients and got a thick dry dough that required more kneading than I thought necessary, I just kept on working.  I knew something was wrong, I reread the recipe to check my measurements, but still didn't see that one line at the top of the ingredient list that said sourdough starter.

Even though I was 100% certain the final product would not be a success I went ahead baked the dough off.  The final result was a dense, rather bland, oatmeal roll.  It was palatable when smothered with butter and jam, but what isn't.

This recipe is going on my try again list, I will let you know if I have better luck the second time around.

Oatmeal Twists
from Paulchens Food Blog



700 g sourdough starter
(or poolish/starter of 350 g all-purpose flour mixed with 350 g water and 2 teaspoons yeast. Sit 3 hrs, stir down, put in fridge overnight, or at least 8 hours- use where recipe calls for sourdough starter.)



320 g all-purpose flour
230 g whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
115 g rolled oats, coarsely ground in a food processor
15 g salt
1 1/4 cup water
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
100 g pecans, chopped

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. Knead in the pecans.  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.)

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

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.

Uncover, glaze with buttermilk with clean pastry brush. If desired sprinkle with finely chopped pecans, or preferred seeds or with sea salt. 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.