Multi Grain Bread- Cook's Illustrated

The real reason you made all that turkey? The leftover turkey-stuffing-cranberry sandwich! mmm. And I have the perfect bread to put it on: Multi Grain Bread from our friends at Cook's Illustrated. I am sad to admit that this is NOT a 5-min bread, but sometimes you need to work a bit harder to get a great result. I'm listing the single batch here, but I usually make a 1.5 batch and split it into 2 loaves for a slightly fuller loaf. The key to the recipe is the 7 grain cereal mix. "Bob's Red Mill" is the brand recommended, but I use the store brand in the bulk bin at Whole Foods. Any sort of 7 or 10 grain hot cereal combination should work. Don't use 7 grain cold cereals- you're looking for a grain mixture that wants to be cooked with hot water.

1 1/4 cups 7 grain hot cereal mix
2 1/2 cups boiling water
4 Tbs butter
4 Tbs honey
1 Tbs instant yeast
3 cups white flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tbs salt
3/4 cup unsalted raw sunflower or pumpkin seeds (or 1/4 cup flax seeds)
1/2 cup rolled oats (optional)

1. Put 7 grain cereal mix in the mixer bowl and add the hot water. Add the butter and let sit 1 hour to cool. (Note, recipe adds melted butter in the next step, but I don't see why you should waste another dish to melt butter)

2. When you can hold your finger in the mixture for a count of 10 add honey, butter if you haven't already, and yeast. Mix well to incorporate the yeast.

3. If you're using a mixer, get out the dough hook - if you're not be prepared for some serious kneading as multi grain takes more work to get the gluten going. Add the flours 1/2 cup at a time and mix with the dough hook. Knead until dough forms a ball - you may need a Tbs or two more or less of flour depending on your climate.

4. Let the dough rest for 20 min covered in saran wrap

5. Add the Tbs salt and knead via mixer for 5 min - this is a long time and a lot of kneading, so don't under do it!

6. Add the seeds and mix to incorporate. The dough hook doesn't do a very good job of this and I recommend you take it out of the mixer and give it a quick knead on the counter to incorporate everything. You can use your creativity with the seeds. Just make sure you get raw ones and not toasted and salted.

7. Place in a greased bowl and cover and let it rise for 1 hour, until doubled in bulk. It doesn't matter if it rises too long on the first rise, so if you need to abandon it, now's the time.

8. Punch down the dough and form into 2 loaves. Place in a 9x5 greased loaf pan. The recipe suggests you use the 1/2 cup of oats to roll the formed loaves so they have a coating of oats. If you're going to show - do it. It looks great. If, however you just want to eat bread, I'd skip it - the oats just end up all over your counter when you slice it.

9. preheat oven to 375. Let the loaves rise about 45 min - until they are peaking over the tops of the pan. It does not gain a lot of height in the oven, so if you need to wait a bit longer to put it in.

10. Bake 35 min until a thermometer inserted in the center reads 200F. Yes, a thermometer really works best. It won't hit 200 until about 8 min after you think it looks nicely golden, so if you don't have a thermometer just wait 5 min beyond what you think is done. This bread is very dense so it takes a bit longer.



11. Slice and top with leftover cranberry and turkey for a delicious leftover lunch!