From Experimental Bread to Croutons

My Oatmeal Bread is my go-to favorite recipe…to make, to eat and to share! I have never had a bad batch of this bread (that I can remember!). You can read about my recipe in this previous post (https://marykisner.com/marys-oatmeal-bread/).

In the last several months I’ve been unhappy with texture of the bread. At least it still tasted OK but the bread was a little dry and crumbly when sliced. Each time I tried a batch I changed something, hoping to hit on the magic ingredient or process. I started making batches of only two loaves. We ate one and froze the other. I now have 5 loaves of bread in the freezer that are just experiment rejects!

I started with the knife. Maybe the serrated knife we used was not as sharp and seemed to shred the bread instead of cutting it. We switched knives…made no difference.

Time to investigate the ingredients. This recipe is simple…flour, rolled oats, yeast, olive oil, honey, sugar and salt. So, one at a time, I substituted ingredients.

Then I used the original recipe, but changed the flour from King Arthur All-purpose flour to Pillsbury All-purpose flour. The new flour felt “thicker” or more compact. This made a heavy loaf and tasted fine, but it still made crumbs as it was sliced. The next batch I added Vital Wheat Gluten to the mix…this changed the taste a little but didn’t fix the crumbling texture.

Next, I went to the local Health Food Store and picked up a small bag of organic rolled oats. They appeared to be smaller and softer than the ones I was using. I also picked up a 5 lb. bag of Organic All-Purpose flour. Finally, I brought out a fresh package of Dry Yeast from the freezer.

Finally, the new ingredients seemed to make the difference! At this point I’m going to say the new rolled oats incorporated better into the dough when mixing.

Now that I have a freezer full of 5 loaves leftover from my baking experiments, all labeled OATMEAL BREAD, for the last loaf that turned out right I made a different label:

Nice rise!

Great texture!

Now, what to do with 5 loaves of bread in the freezer that need to be recycled into something else? How about croutons!!

Making Croutons

I did a search for “How to Make Homemade Croutons” and found a simple recipe. This link has lots of information about making croutons:

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a33462622/homemade-croutons-recipe/.

I simplified the recipe for my use:

I pulled my loaves of Experimental bread out of the freezer and let them thaw enough to cut them into cubes. Because it’s homemade bread, I kept the cubes a little larger and let them finish thawing after cutting. I was crumbling enough!

I put 1/4 cup of oil in a larger bowl and dumped in the cubes. I tossed the cubes in the bowl to coat them with oil and sprinkled herbs on the pile and tossed them again.

I spread the cubes out on two baking pans and baked them for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. I let them sit on the tray until they were coo. They turned a golden brown, crunchy on the outside, but soft enough inside so they would work on a salad. Some commercial croutons are so hard they can’t be stabbed with a fork! As I make more, I think I’ll store them in zip bags in the freezer.

I feel so much better about my Oatmeal Bread! I counted it to be the bread I could take as a gift…now I can!! Enjoy!