Random Grain Bread

I haven't posted for a while but here's a useful recipe I've used a few times since this whole  thing kicked off.

If you are like me, then your larder tends to accumulate bags containing small amounts of grain-y things that aren't enough to use in a normal receipe. Coucous, bulger wheat, quinoa, millet, cornmeal, semolina etc. This recipe uses these leftovers to add some interest to bread.

Ingredients:

• 100g of leftover grains (feel free to mix!)
• 200g strong wholemeal flour
• 200g strong white flour (if you use just wholemeal the bread can get rather heavy!)
• 325ml water
• your chosen yeast (enough for an 800g loaf - I use a teaspoon of Allinson Quick Yeast)
• 1tbsp vegetable oil
• 1tsp salt
• 1tsp sugar

1. Pour 300ml boiling water over your grains and leave to soak for around half an hour until cooled. If the water is too hot then it will kill the yeast.
2. Mix all the other ingredients and then add in the grains and water.
3. Knead for 10 minutes (if you are lucky then you have a mixer with a dough hook). This will seem very dry at first but the moisture will start to redistrbute between the grains and the dough as time goes on.
4. Add some of the remaining 25ml of water if it seems really dry after 5 mins of kneading. Wholemeal flours and grains do vary a bit in water absorbancy so some judgment is required.
5. Leave to rise for a couple of hours covered in a cloth. Or you can use a little spray oil like Frylight to coat the dough (you can make something similar with a 50-50 mix of your oil of choice and vodka shaken with a pinch of soy lecithin in a spray bottle).
6. Knead for about 5 minutes more and transfer to a baking vessel.
7. While it rises again get the oven on to 230C.
8. Bake for 20-25mins.   

If soaked sufficiently the grains pretty much disappear into the bread but give the crust a bit more texture. Obviously, not all grains work - those that need boiling to soften, like barley, will be too hard. Not sure about pulses either - but those are easily used up in soups.