My 85th experiment: Buttermilk oatcake

I have buttermilk and cereal. So I decide to find a recipe for both. What comes up is Bernard Clayton's buttermilk oatcake recipe. His recipe uses baking soda. I'd like to try out yeast instead.

Recipe: Buttermilk oatcake (make 8 small or 4 medium pieces)

Ingredients:
- 1 cup uncooked multigrain cereal
- 1 cup nonfat buttermilk
- 1 cup KAF bread flour
- 2+1/2 tp active dry yeast
- 1+1/2 tp salt
- 1 tp oil (for rubbing surface of dough)

Procedure:
1. Soak uncooked cereal in buttermilk overnight.
2. Add dry yeast to soaked cereal and mix well. Allow to sit for 15 minutes.
3. Sieve flour and salt together.
4. Mix yeast and soaked cereal with dry ingredients. After the wet ingredients are broken into small crumbs and rolled into flour, use hand to knead and squeeze the mixture until dough is formed.
5. Allow dough to chill for a few hours. Then cut into 8 pieces. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze if desired.
6. To bake on the same day, allow dough to warm up. Then rub dough's surface with oil. Flatten to 1/4" thick. Fill with cheese and fold up.
7. Allow dough to proof for an hour.
8. Bake at 350F for 15 minutes or until top becomes golden brown.

Results:
Day 1, 6:04pm, 1 cup of buttermilk mixed with 1 cup of uncooked cereal:

Day 2, 7:45am, 2.5 tp of active dry yeast ready to be added to the soaked cereal:

Day 2, 7:50am, mixture of yeast and soaked cereal allowed to rest for about 30 minutes:

Day 2, 8:23am, yeast and soaked cereal added to the mixture of flour and salt:

Day 2, 8:34am, final dough prepared and ready to chill until use:

Day 2, 12:35pm, texture of dough after chilling 4 hours; observe that there is no great increase in volume, but the dough has very strong texture:

Day 2, 12:37pm, the strong dough shaped and ready to be cut:

Day 2, 12:40pm, dough cut to 8 pieces:

Day 2, 12:40pm, cross section of dough:

Day 2, 4:00pm, two pieces of of dough mushed together and rubbed with oil, to be flattened:

Day 2, 4:03pm, dough flattened in oil and ready to be filled:

Day 2, 4:06pm, dough filled with cheese:

Day 2, 4:05pm, dough's height when ready to proof:

Day 2, 6:31pm, dough proofed 2.5 hours:

Day 2, 6:32pm, baking started at 350F in toaster oven:

Day 2, 6:49pm, oatcake baked 17 minutes (when cheese oozes out, use spoon to scoop it away to prevent burning):

Day 2, 6:53pm, oatcake's front, back and corner when done:

Day 6:53pm, oatcake's bottom, coated with leaked cheese:

Day 2, 7:31pm, oatcake cut open to serve:

One week later:
2:56pm, two pieces of dough mushed up and shaped into a dough with cheese filling:

6:31pm, dough proofed 3.5 hours:

6:31pm, dough to bake at 375-400F in toaster oven:

6:41pm, cheese oozing out after 10 minutes:

6:51pm, roll baked 20 minutes:

6:51pm, bottom of baked roll:

6:51pm, top of baked roll:

7:01pm, interior:

Another time (about 2-3 weeks later):
To make a quick breakfast, I place two pieces of dough wrapped in plastic on a rake on top of a small pot of hot water. This seems to be the fastest way to defrost dough. Make sure the entire dough is warmed before use. Stretch it out for better contact with heat if needed. Then I use microwave to heat up a hot dog for about 20-30 seconds. Then I roll out the dough into a sheet and wrap around the hot dog. Bake at 350F for about 10 minutes. Then thinly slice some good cheddar. Place the cheese on top of the roll. Continue to bake for about 10 minutes. When it's almost done, the hot dog will give a great aroma. Serve hot.

8:38am, sausage roll baked 20 minutes at 350F in toaster oven:

8:38am, roll's top:

8:39am, roll's bottom:

8:39am, roll's heel:

Observations:
1. The oatcake is a lot denser than oatmeal bread. This is understandable. Oatcake has a ratio of cereal:flour = 1:1. Oatmeal bread has a ratio of 1:2.
2. The yeast in this cake is what normally used for a medium loaf of bread. This perhaps gives the excellent rise in this cake.
3. I put too much cheese into the filling. Should cut that to half. Hot cheese oozes out while baking. By the time the oatcake is done, the interior is almost empty.
4. This oatcake tastes excellent. The cheese provides the oil, the crispiness and the flavor that complements the plainness of the oatcake.

Hubby and I both like the cheese oatcake. It's denser than the oatmeal bread, but we are learning to enjoy it as it is, especially since it is fresh from the oven and has such rich flavor of cheese!