Seedy Spelt, Flax and Chia Rolls

One of my favourite baked goods is a crusty and seedy roll, perfect as a sandwich or eaten open-face like the Germans do. Once again I tried to increase the nutritional content by using Spelt rather than white flour, and by adding a chia and flax seed soaker. I added SD starter for flavour, but also used yeast because I was baking the same day. These tasted great and were a good balance of chewy and fluffy on the inside. The recipe below made 8 rolls, but if you want them larger just divide into 6 rather than 8. The hydration is quite high so the dough is messy, but this improves the texture. If you prefer denser rolls I would decrease the hydration slightly.

• 500 gr flour (300 gr spelt, 200 gr ww German type 1050)
• 100 gr SD starter at 100% hydration, made with whole rye flour (my darling "Steve")
• 5 gr dry yeast
• 12 gr salt
• soaker made of 3 tbsp chia seed and 2 tbsp coarsely ground flax seeds, soaked in 50 ml water (all water should be soaked up by your seed mix, drain excess if needed)
• seed mix for topping (in this case I mixed poppy, sesame, chia and sunflower seeds with some spelt flakes)
• 350 ml water 

I start the soaker and simultaneously autolyse flour and water for 30 min. Then I add the remaining ingredients (except for the topping) and knead in KA on low speed for approx. 10 min. I let the dough rest and proof with an occasional S+F for 3 hours or until doubled in size. Spelt flour prooves quickly, so keep an eye on it. I preheat the oven as hot as it'll go, for me that 240 celsius. I turn out the dough, divide into 8 and let rest 10 or so minutes. Using a fair bit of flour on the work surface, I shape the rolls and try to build some surface tension by dragging them towards me with the bench scraper. They will look a bit flat, but there's a lot of oven spring once they bake. I spritz the rolls with water and top liberally with the seed mix, patting it in as I go. Once they're all seeded, I add some quick slashes (although this isn't neccessary). I bake at a high temp with steam for 25 min, then another 8 min without steam at a lower temp (180 C).