Was it summer when she did that and maybe a little warmer?
Naw, it was early spring, just after my birthday... right in break-up. But I wailed on it now and then, all summer long, and never got it right.... which is why I am having her back over. Sounds like a long process, but not really... I will try a couple times, and abandon it for a while, and circle back around as time and desire permits. So for the most part, I do what I know works, and incorporate new stuff as I master it.
This time around, I am going to see about a bread-maker in order to create a repeatable kneading process that I can later mimic... Not going to cook it in the bread-maker, but surely can knead it in there... and come to think of it, might oughta have a temp controlled means built-in to that bread maker for the rising too... I will look back in the destructions and find that part out.
Anyhoo, this time around, Sis is gonna come over and I will scratch make it with her, and perhaps make another in the bread maker to see what's the matter... maybe it is in my use of ingredients somehow, or in the kneading of it, or in the rising of it... It wasn't nothing hard, watching her do it last time.
My mamma's still here too, and she is the original kitchen battleaxe... She made bread every day for her family when she was younger... But this oat bread is my sister's recipe, hence her participation
instead... One way or another, we'll get it figured out.
One of those links I left you says to do the oven thing with a pan of boiling water on the bottom rack. If it's super cold there you might have to refresh it to keep the right temp in.
Yep... I wouldn't think it all that bad for heat, unless it's something that has to go overnight... I have the gas turned down in here, where it comes on at 50 or so, Just for after the wood stove might go out in the night. so it gets pretty cool in here in the winter at night. I have lost sourdough starter over it. I think it is more about no constant temperature - as the wood stove can cook the place when it is roaring, during the daytime. There is no place here with a reliable temperate norm.
I guess I could just turn up the gas on baking day - but that defeats the purpose for me... Our elders got this stuff done without all the modern appliances, so I should be able to do it too.