I like seeds in bread and Chad Robertson's Seeded Bread really intrigued me with the quantity and the variety of seeds in this particular bread. I have long given up on using Robertson's flour quantities and methods but I do use his creations for inspiration. The methods are right out of FWSY for the most part.
The levain was created out of 40 grams starter that had been fed the night before, 200 grams high extraction flour and 160 grams of water to make a 80% levain. I left that to rise for approximately 6 and a half hours at a room temperature of 74/76 F (the room got warmer as the day went by).
I toasted the following seeds in a frying pan:
100 g flaxseeds
100 g sesame seeds
100 g poppy seeds
50 g sunflower seeds
50 pumpkin seeds
50 g caraway
The flax seeds and the caraway were toasted separately from the rest because the flax seeds needed to soak in 180 g of hot water and the caraway seeds were to be coarsely ground after toasting. The remainder were toasted together in the frying pan. Once the flax seeds had cooled down somewhat, I added the rest of the seeds and let them absorb all of the liquid.
Autolyse consisted of:
300 g high extraction flour
400 g all unbleached all purpose flour
100 g wholegrain wheat flour
26 g of wheatgerm
42 g of vital wheat gluten (I added this because I thought that with the weight of all of these seeds, the dough needed all the help it could get)
660 g of water at 85F
I let this autolyse for one hour. Then I added:
22 g of salt
1/2 tsp yeast
360 g of the above levain
I mixed everything well by hand and let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Then I added the seek soaker and a bit more water because the dough seemed a bit dry. I didn't measure the water but it was probably a few tablespoons. I really had to work to get all the seeds incorporated in the dough. It was a huge quantity of seeds. My dough temperature ended up being 77F.
I did four sets of stretches and folds a half hour apart. The dough was slightly more than doubled about 3 hours later. It was very poofy (is that a word?) and felt awesome!
I divided the dough, shaped it and put it in the baskets. I didn't use a bench rest. I tried to get a tight skin on the boules but I over floured my counter and the dough just couldn't get a grip. The result was very inflated boules that just about filled my baskets.
I used my little marked jar to estimate the rise but I got nervous when it reached about 1.5 times the volume. I did the finger poke test and it told me that the dough was ready to go into the oven.
The oven with the dutch ovens was preheated to 500F so I sprinkled cornmeal in the bottom of the pots, dropped in the loaves, spritzed the loaves with water and sprinkled seeds on top. I usually put the seeds in the proofing baskets but I forgot and in hindsight, my baskets are pretty open weaved so I might have lost a lot of the seeds through the weave.
The loaves baked at 500F for 20 minutes, then the temperature was dropped to 450F for 10 more minutes. I took the lids off and baked for another 25 minutes.
Notes: Spritzing the water on the loaves to make the seeds stick worked just fine. I didn't get a huge oven rise but it was decent enough to get a good crumb. I am not sure but I think that even with me watching the dough and my little handy dandy graduated proofing tool, I may have over proofed it a bit even though it looked like it has risen only one and a half times. The loaves spread out quite a bit when I turned them out and looked like they deflated a bit when dropped in the dutch oven. By the way, the taste is excellent in spite of the huge amount of caraway seeds in this combo. I must admit though that if I make this again, I won't be including the caraway seeds. They overpower the rest of the seeds in terms of flavour.
- Danni3ll3's Blog
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Danni:
I can imagine how good it tastes even by just looking at the picture!
For a long time I thought rye tasted like caraway because it is very assertive and was in the rye bread that was bought. Your bread was well done.
one more time (Eagles). Now, that's a lot of seeds. Seems almost Seeditious ;-) . I'm personally not a big fan of mixing different seeds, but the boule looks lovely with scant microns of unseeded crust.
I don't use nearly as many seeds as you do, but here's how I incorporate my 2.3% caraway seeds into the dough: On the first stretch and fold (as with all of my other S&Fs) I wet the bench top and dump the dough onto the wetted bench. With moistened hands, I draw the dough out into a large rectangle (no tearing of the young gluten, please) and then spread the seeds equitably across the entire rectangular surface. After which I will proceed with the S&F. Within a few more "normal" gentle S&Fs the seeds are well incorporated into the dough.
I'll tell you why I don't like to do this at the end of mix time. As you mentioned, there is work/overwork involved in getting the seeds incorporated at this stage. Furthermore, I do not wish to interrupt the initial formation of the gluten strands by working the seeds (or perhaps as the dough sees/experiences them, the tiny little saws and knives) through the dough. I want to encourage the early development of the gluten, and avoid having any product in the dough that may hinder or curtail that development.
Give it a try the next time and see whether this will work for you.
alan
I definitely was worried about tearing up the gluten but Robertson says that the dough will feel like it is coming apart but will pull back together eventually. Maybe with your technique, I will get more oven rise and putting the dough out on a wet counter will be much easier than trying to mix this all in a 6 liter Cambro.
as we well know. Here is an example of the first S&F on a wet bench. If Mr. Robertson says so, I'd take his word over mine.
over his since I haven't ever had any luck with his method aside from his basic country loaf. I hate to admit it but I have watched most of your videos so I have seen that one and did try your wet counter method once. I did like it and need to use it more often.
flour when shaping . Wood is the best surface and then you just sprinkle a bit of flour and work it into the surface and scrape the entire surface with a bench scraper so there is no flour left on the surface. I have marble and never ever use any bench flour of any kind - it just gets in the way monkeying with the works and changes the feel and hydration of the dough. Just get used to not needing the bench flour crutch. Not getting the dough properly degssed and skin tight probably messed up the test glass too. The loaf and dough ball weren't handled the same so the dough fleet ready with the poke test at 50% rather than 80 % we would normally look for.
This is good thing to remember when bulk retarding a loaf and then doing a shape and hour after it comes out if the fridge. The dough will still be old and it won't shape the same way it would it it were at room temperature. Just like this bread, you won't get it de-gassd and get the skin as tight so you will want to bake it at 50% proof too instead of 80%.
The crumb came out nice and we love loads of seeds. Hey, it's a seed bread for heavens sake:-) i always grind just past cracked, to large meal, the flax and caraway since they just pass through the body undigested, even if soaked before incorporating. I want the minerals and essential oils and nutrition from these seeds.
This is a fine bread all the way around. Well done and
Happy baking
Many helpful reminders here, not the least of which is grinding seeds for nutrition. I'm getting better at managing my portable wood bench for pre- and final shaping. I wish I had a section of wood countertop dedicated for bread.
What is this with degassing the dough during shaping? I handle the dough super gently and try to keep as much of the fermentation gas bubbles as possible. Is that why I am not getting a lot of oven spring?