Oat Petal Bread

Flavor: Sweet; Technique: Baking; Time: Several hours; Difficulty: Advanced.

Detailed Steps for Making Oat Petal Bread

Prepare the ingredients.

Start with the preferment: Mix 100g bread flour, 30g oat flour, 2g yeast, 2g salt, 1 tsp walnut oil, 5g sugar, 1 egg, and 10g water together to form a dough. No need to knead until smooth, just form into a ball. It was originally intended as a no-knead bread, but due to overproofing, it ended up being used as the preferment.

Add the remaining ingredients to the preferment dough, along with 120g water, and knead in a stand mixer until 80-90% gluten development. If kneading by hand, use a folding and slapping technique until a smooth, thin film can be stretched. For specific hand-kneading methods, refer to the article “Hand-Kneading Techniques for Bread Dough” on my homepage or public account.

Round the dough and place it in an oiled container, cover with plastic wrap, and ferment until doubled or 2.5 times in size. To test if it’s ready, poke the dough with a floured finger – it should not collapse immediately or bounce back completely, but slightly rebound. A quick rebound indicates underproofing, while collapse indicates overproofing.

Degas and divide the dough into 8 pieces of around 55g each for larger dough balls and 20g each for smaller dough balls.

Roll a small dough ball into a circle about 10-15cm in diameter, then brush with oil in the center.

Place a large dough ball with the sealed side up in the center of the small dough circle, then pinch the corners of the dough together diagonally.

Continue pinching the protruding dough corners together diagonally until a round shape is formed without major wrinkles.

Flip the dough ball over and round it further.

Spray the surface of the dough with water and sprinkle with flour. Use a sharp blade to make a cross-shaped cut on the dough, creating 4 petals. The depth of the cut should be based on piercing the outer layer of dough. A deeper cut is also acceptable.

Make a small cut in the center of each petal. Preheat the oven to 180°C, and let the bread continue to proof.

Once preheated, place the bread in the middle of the oven, spray some mist into the oven, and bake for about 30 minutes. After baking, shake the baking pan, then transfer the bread to a cooling rack to cool. Store at room temperature in a sealed container. For longer storage, freeze and reheat at 180°C for 5 minutes before serving.

The crust of the petals is crispy, while the bread itself is soft and elastic, delicious and visually appealing. I really like it, how about you?