Ingre­di­ents

Makes two 9 x 5-inch loaves Equip­ment: two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans, oiled
• Very warm water (105º to 115ºF) — 57 g / 2.00 oz / 1/4 cup
• Active dry yeast — 1 tea­spoon / 1 tea­spoon / 1 teaspoon
• Whole wheat flour — 524 g / 18.48 oz / 3 1/2 cups
• Unbleached bread flour — 354 g / 12.50 oz / 2 1/3 cups
• Old-fashioned rolled oats — 170 g / 6.00 oz / 2 cups
• Kosher salt — 20 g / 0.70 oz / 2 tablespoons
• Cool water (75º to 78ºF) — 622 g / 22.00 oz / 2 3/4 cups
• Biga Starter (see recipe below) — 340 g / 12.00 oz / 1 1/2 cups
• Honey — 42 g / 1.50 oz / 2 table­spoons plus 2 teaspoons
• Molasses — 35 g / 1.23 oz / 2 tablespoons
• Canola or veg­etable oil — 20 g / 0.70 oz / 2 tablespoons
• Pecan pieces, toasted — 227 g / 8.00 oz / 2 cups
• Extra oats, for top­ping the shaped loaves

Method

1. Com­bine the very warm water and yeast in a large bowl and stir with a fork to dis­solve the yeast. Let stand for 3 minutes.
2. Whisk the whole wheat flour, bread flour, oats, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. Add the cool water, biga, honey, molasses, and oil to the yeast mix­ture and mix with your fin­gers for 2 min­utes, break­ing up the biga. The mix­ture should look milky and slightly foamy. Add the flour mix­ture and stir with your fin­gers to incor­po­rate the flour, scrap­ing the sides of the bowl and fold­ing the dough over itself until it gath­ers into a shaggy mass.
4. Move the dough to a very lightly floured sur­face and knead for 7 to 8 min­utes, until it becomes sup­ple and elas­tic, using as lit­tle addi­tional flour as pos­si­ble. This dough should be very soft and moist but not mushy. If it feels too wet, add another table­spoon or so of bread flour as you knead. If it feels too stiff, add cool water 1 table­spoon at a time until you have a pli­able dough. It will feel sticky in the begin­ning but become com­pact and elas­tic as you knead it. Put the dough back into the mix­ing bowl, cover with oiled plas­tic, and let rest for 20 min­utes to relax and develop elas­tic­ity. You should be able to stretch it eas­ily but you won’t get a trans­par­ent sheet with this dough, because of the chunky oatmeal.
5. Spread out the dough in the mix­ing bowl and evenly sprin­kle on the pecans. Press them into the dough, then pull the dough from the edges of the bowl and fold it in toward the mid­dle. Knead the dough in the bowl until the nuts are evenly incor­po­rated, 3 to 4 minutes.
6. Gather the dough into a loose ball, lift it up and oil the bowl, then place it back in the bowl, along with any loose nuts. Turn the dough to coat with oil, cover the bowl with oiled plas­tic wrap, and let it rise at room tem­per­a­ture (75º to 77ºF) for about 2 to 2½ hours, until it dou­bles in vol­ume. When the dough is fully risen, an inden­ta­tion made by pok­ing your lightly floured fin­ger deep into the dough should not spring back.
7. Gen­tly remove the dough from the bowl and place it on a lightly floured work sur­face, press­ing in any loose nuts. Divide it into two equal pieces and shape each piece into a log.
8. Spread a thin layer of the extra oats for top­ping on a flat plate or bak­ing sheet. Use a pas­try brush or plas­tic spray bot­tle to lightly moisten the top of each log with water, then roll the tops of the loaves in the oats. Place each loaf seam side down in one of the oiled 9 x 5-inch loaf pans. Cover with oiled plas­tic wrap and allow to proof for about 2 hours or until they have dou­bled in size (a fin­ger pressed lightly into the dough will leave an indentation).
9. Thirty min­utes before bak­ing, pre­heat the oven to 450ºF. Pre­pare the oven by plac­ing a cast-iron skil­let and a smaller pan (a mini loaf pan) on the floor of the oven or on the low­est pos­si­ble rack in an elec­tric oven. Place an oven rack two rungs above the cast-iron pan, and if you have one, put a bak­ing stone on the rack. Fill a plas­tic spray bot­tle with water. Fill a teaket­tle with water to be boiled later, and have a metal 1-cup mea­sure with a straight han­dle avail­able near the kettle.
10. Five to 10 min­utes before the loaves are ready to bake, turn the water on to boil, and care­fully place two ice cubes in the small loaf pan in the bot­tom of the oven. This helps to cre­ate mois­ture in the oven prior to baking.
11. When the loaves are ready, place the pans on the bak­ing stone. (If you’re bak­ing with­out a stone sim­ply slide the bread pans onto the empty oven rack.) Pour 1 cup of boil­ing water into the skil­let and imme­di­ately shut the oven door. After about 1 minute, quickly spray the loaves with water, then shut the oven door.
12. After 20 min­utes, reduce the oven tem­per­a­ture to 400ºF and rotate the loaves if nec­es­sary to ensure even brown­ing. Bake them for another 25 to 30 min­utes, until the loaves sound slightly hol­low when tipped out of the pan and tapped on the bot­tom (an instant-read dig­i­tal ther­mome­ter should reg­is­ter around 210ºF). The sides and bot­tom of the loaves should feel firm and slightly crusty. If the tops are browned but the sides are still some­what soft, place the loaves directly on the stone or the oven rack to bake for 5 to 10 more minutes.
13. Cool the loaves com­pletely on a wire rack before slic­ing. This bread freezes well, wrapped tightly in alu­minum foil and a heavy-duty plas­tic freezer bag.

Ingre­di­ents

Biga Starter
• Makes 400 grams / 14 ounces / 1 3/4 cups
• Very warm water (105º to 115ºF) — 200 g / 7.00 oz / 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons
• Active dry yeast — 1/8 tea­spoon / 1/8 tea­spoon / 1/8 teaspoon
• Unbleached all-purpose flour — 227 g / 8.00 oz / 1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons

Method

1. In a medium bowl, mix the warm water and yeast together and stir to dis­solve the yeast. Add the flour and stir vig­or­ously with a wooden spoon for 1 to 2 min­utes, until a smooth, some­what elas­tic bat­ter has formed. The bat­ter will be fairly thick and stretchy; it gets softer and more elas­tic after it has risen. Scrape the biga into the con­tainer, mark the height of the starter and the time on a piece of tape on the side of the con­tainer so you can see how much it rises, and cover the con­tainer with plas­tic wrap.
2. Let it rise at room tem­per­a­ture (75º to 78ºF) for 6 to 8 hours. Or let it rise for 1 hour at room tem­per­a­ture, then chill it in the refrig­er­a­tor for 8 hours or overnight. Remove it from the refrig­er­a­tor and let it sit at room tem­per­a­ture for 3 to 4 hours to warm up and become active before use. Biga should more than dou­ble in vol­ume. If you use the starter while it’s still cold from the refrig­er­a­tor, be sure to com­pen­sate for the cold tem­per­a­ture by using warm water (85ºF to 90ºF) in your dough, instead of the cool water spec­i­fied in the recipe. Use the starter while it is still bub­bling up, but before it starts to deflate.