So, I made some struan bread last night/this morning. It came out better than it had any right to.

The recipe just didn't work. There were a lot of ingredients to the bread, which I expected, but once everything was put together, it made for a very hard chunky dough. My mixer wasn't having any of it (making that ugly "I'm burning my motor" noise), and when I hand kneaded it, it was just rough.

I ended up adding almost triple the water it asked for to get it into a fairly dense but proper feeling dough. It called for three rises, though, and all three worked BEAUTIFULLY.

But I think where things went wrong for the second time was it said to punch it down and put it in the fridge overnight. I did so, and when I took it out of the fridge to rise to room temperature, it rose very lightly. Even after warming up the oven and leaving it in there for an hour to rise, it barely rose. I think Seattle "room temperature" is just too cold for good rising in any season other than Summer.

So I just baked it. And, you know? It's good. It's dense, but it's good. I think I either need a whole new recipe, or just use the ingredients and ignore the instructions, putting the bread directly in the oven instead of trying to get it to rise out of the fridge.

It's actually really good tasting. There's a LOT of stuff in it, like rolled oats, corn meal, cooked brown rice, yogurt (subbing for buttermilk) giving it a good texture. Also the repeated rising and punching down gave it a real subtle sour taste that's just BARELY there.

I've got two weeks of this bread now, I think I'll make it again, but this time, follow my own instincts instead of the instructions.