Softest oats and whole-wheat sandwich loaf

I have made this delicious loaf soooo many times, I have lost count. I often make two loaves at a time just because one loaf of this tastiest slice of bread just isn’t enough. And well, it is a sandwich loaf isn’t it? So very versatile. Eat it plain, toasted or make something out of it like my palak paneer sandwich. Use the paneer filling and make a sandwich you will get addicted to.

Though it is not a loaf of bread that can be made in a hurry as the dough requires pre-fermentation, the wait is soooo worth it. There are three components to this recipe. The pre-fermentation, the oats porridge and the final dough that brings all components together for the softest loaf of bread.

The two components of this recipe; biga and oats porridge are two techniques that gives this bread a soft, buttery and light texture. Biga is a type of a pre-fermentation which allows flavour to develop and makes this loaf light and airy. The porridge is the tangzhong, which is essentially the cooked part of the dough that helps keep the bread soft even after a day and gives it a light, fluffy texture. In the eggless milk loaf, I have used tangzhong and if you have made it, you know how soft the pav or the loaf turns out.

Most often, tangzhong is a mix of flour and water that is cooked till it becomes like a thick, pudding kind of texture and then used in the final dough. In this recipe, however, instead of flour, we will be using flour made out of oats which we will toast first in some butter and then add milk to it to make a silky-smooth oats porridge. This porridge along with biga will give you a sandwich loaf that is not only buttery and soft but extremely flavourful.

Update: Recently I did a step by step video on my Instagram and Facebook stories and came about some interesting queries. So, summarizing it here for a quick check:

1. Activating the biga and then proofing it overnight in the fridge, both are essential steps to this recipe. After mixing the ingredients of biga, it is important the small amount of yeast that we mix in the flour comes to life and then once it has, put in the fridge so that it continues to develop slowly and thus develop flavour. Both activating the yeast and overnight proofing behave differently and is an important step in this recipe.
2. Biga does not need kneading. Once the flour, water and yeast come together in a shaggy looking dough, keep it aside to proof. Once it has proofed, refrain from touching and put it in the fridge for overnight proofing.
3. While shaping the dough, I prefer to divide the total amount of the dough by 3 and then shaping each dough ball separately rather than shaping the whole dough. Doing this makes it easier to handle the dough simply because of its size. It also helps to tightly roll the dough ball and thereby avoiding any large air pockets.
4. The dough can be divided roughly in 3 parts or precisely by using a weighing scale. The only difference being, when divided precisely, the final loaf looks uniform and ‘just out of the bakery’!
5. On a request of my readers, I baked this loaf with 100% oats and whole-wheat flour. I used whole wheat flour in the biga with a higher hydration ratio and it yielded a super soft sandwich loaf (pic below). The crumb was open and airy, the texture was delicate and the flavour was quite nutty. In my personal opinion, it would go perfectly as a slice toasted on a tava, however the slice is quite delicate to hold itself on a pop up toaster or a sandwich maker.
6. If you are looking for a step by step video process, do check ‘oats bread’ under highlights in my Instagram account #acookwithin

   

If you liked this recipe, you might find these other recipes interesting as well:

1. Sunflower bread
2. Eggless pull apart pizza/calzone loaf
3. Spinach sandwich loaf /Spinach Pain De Mie
4. Cheese and chutney babka
5. Sweet and savory star bread