Muesli Musings

I love muesli and make no bones about it. Most days, my breakfast consists of muesli with yogurt or milk, failing which, I am willing to eat granola. If I cannot lay my hands on either, then even a porridge made of oats will do. This does not mean I will not eat anything else. I just find it a healthy, easy to put together and filling breakfast. I can change it around by adding fresh fruits of my choice and it sort of feels like having dessert for breakfast. Then I happen to chance upon this bread. It had muesli (at least most of the ingredients that go on to make a muesli) and was a bread by the Bread Baking Babes.

Now these are babes I have admired from afar for a while now. They bake the most interesting breads every month and I have sometimes tried to replicate some of their recipes. Now with my own blog, and all the jazz, I felt that maybe the time was right for me to actually blog about one of their breads. So this time it was a bread from Bake My Day who played host for the month.

I had most of the ingredients on hand. I had this lovely rolled oats, mixed with rolled barley, and finger millet and decided that I was going to use that. I wanted a stronger leaning towards oats and the babe at Bread Experience showed me the way. I used oat flour instead of whole wheat ( I just weight out the  some rolled oats and powdered it in my blender). I love sesame. So I increased that quantity of sesame (I used both black and white) and reduced the sunflower seeds. As for the fruit, I used cranberry, some raisins and some chopped prunes. Next time I would rethink the prunes. The fruit was so soft that as I incorporated the fruit into the dough it just sort of spread itself, colouring my dough a shade of grey. So next time figs, maybe? (I love that crunch of those little seeds). The original recipe had chocolate as well, more as an optional add on. For a change I actually passed on the chocolate. That’s right!

 

In my seeded breads, I usually toast the seeds and then add it to the dough. I have been reading a lot about soaking the seeds and thought that this might be the best time to try that out. So my seeds and oats sat around for an hour or two soaking in water. The dough itself felt a little dry to start with, then a little sticky. Nothing a touch of flour could not fix. Why am I telling you this? Just so that you do not get fooled by the initial dryness and add more liquid. The short rests between bouts of kneading helped my shoulder and the dough absorb the liquid.

While the dough was packed away for the first rise, I was already dreaming of my breakfast the next morning. The grey dough did not deter me. I knew it was going to taste great. It was a chockfull of everything that the doctors claim is good for you. All this goodness sure weighs down the bread. It took almost an hour and a half for the dough to double. This for my hot kitchen is a loooong time. So be patient and just wait.

Once it was time for me to shape the rolls, I had a choice. I could go with the traditional round, bun like shape or go with the funky square ones as suggested in the original. I went with the funky. A lot less work as well and somehow felt like I was making scones. Mine were not exactly square but you get the picture. I am going to be making square buns for a while now. Talk about a square peg in a round hole!

INGREDIENTS

Muesli Rolls 
by Dean Brettschneider  (I made half the quantity and got 8 rolls)
450 gms (2.3/4 cups) All-Purpose Flour
50 gr (1/3 cup) Oat Flour
40 gr (1/2 cup) Rolled Oats
8 gr  (2.3/4 tsp) Instant Yeast
10 gr (2 tsp) Salt
30 gr (1.1/2 Tbs) Treacle (I used melted jaggery)
20 gr (1 Tbs) Honey
20 ml (4 tsp) Olive oil
370 ml (1.1/2 cups) Water
40 gr (scant 1/2 cup) Walnut pieces (chopped small)
30 gr (3 Tbs) Flax seeds
80 gr (2.1/4 Tbs) Sesame seeds
20 gr (1/2 cup) Sunflower seeds
70 gr (2/3 cup) Pumpkin seeds
50 gr (1/4 cup) Raisins, Cranberry and Prunes, cut into pieces
100 gr (1 generous cup) Rolled Oats to decorate

METHOD
1. Soak the seeds and rolled oats in the water for about an hour or so.

2. Combine the soaked seeds and oats, flours, yeast, salt and wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Using a wooden spoon, combine to form a dough. (This is when I found it sort of dry)

3. Tip dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 15 minutes, resting it for 1 minute every 2-3 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic.

4. Check dough throughout kneading for stickiness; add a little more water or flour if necessary to achieve a soft dough that’s  not too firm.

5. Add walnuts and dried fruit. Knead until well incorporated.

6. Place dough in  a lightly oiled bowl, cover and allow to rise until double.

7. Gently knock back dough in bowl by folding it back onto itself several times. Cover again and leave for a further 30 minutes.

8. Tip dough upside down onto a lightly floured work surface.  Sprinkle a little flour over top of dough if it feels sticky and pat out into a rectangle about 3/4th inch thick.

9. Using a dough scraper or pizza cutter, cut dough into squares.

10. Line a baking tray parchment paper.  Place rolls onto lined tray, leaving a 2-3cms gap between each roll.

11. Cover and leave to proof for 30-45 minutes or until double.

12. Spritz or brush rolls with water and sprinkle rolled oats on top.

13. Bake in a preheated 230 C oven for 20-25 minutes until done. Remove rolls from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Totally delicious plain or toasted, the bread is surprisingly soft and the crumb tender and moist. Did soaking the seeds make a difference–maybe, maybe not. I am still on the fence with that one. I loved the fact that the bread was not really sweet and the only little burst of sugar was from the bits of fruit. It was perfect with a shmear of cheese or a touch of salted butter. What a delicious way to get your dose of fiber!