New challenge. | The Fresh Loaf

Hi fellow bakers

my friend is addicted to the Cobs bakery chia fruit loaf and I said I would try to make it for her. I found the ingredients on their website. Can anyone help with coming up with a formula It’s yeast and 100% whole wheat it seems Any suggestions would be appreciated!

100% whole wheat flour

75% water

2% salt

1.5% cinnamon (Hamelman uses this amount of cinnamon in a bread recipe)

3% sunflower oil (I use 7% sunflower seeds and 5% sunflower oil in a rye bread recipe and the taste is very sunflower-forward)

7% raisins

7% dates

7% chia seeds

7% sunflower seeds

I've never used chia seeds in a recipe, but Shiao-Ping uses 4x the amount of water to soak the chia.

Thank you so much!

would you say 2.5 tsp of yeast will suffice? In general, if i want to make a low hydration hearth yeast loaf should i put it in a dutch oven? or just on a baking stone? Thanks again.

Hamelman uses 3.5% (fresh) in his recipe (it's a straight dough):

the cinnamon (specifically the chemical compound cinnamic aldehyde) greatly impairs the yeast’s activity, so a higher percentage of yeast is necessary to overcome it. (Tree-bark spices in general, such as mace, allspice, nutmeg, and cinnamon, have compounds that inhibit yeast activity when used in appreciable amounts.) In the present formula, the 3.5 percent yeast used is notable, and is directly related to the effect of the cinnamon in the dough.

For IDY that would be ~1.2%, I guess.

With whole wheat, I would personally use a loaf pan. :-)

Thanks. Yes for sure, loaf pan. I was just thinking for other yeast loaves. Cobs sometimes makes their apricot delight in loaf form or log form. i assume in log form when they've run out of loaf pans.

thanks for your help. I didn't need to think for this one lol. hope it turns out!

It would be cool to see the end result. :)

Had no sunflower seeds used pumpkin instead

Yikes i tried to brown it on the rack bec it looked pale but i forgot about it. Hope inside is ok . feels like a brick but so does the cobs one

How's the taste compared to the original?

I don't think I've had the original but i tasted the end piece of this one and it was pretty good. My friend feels its better than the cobs but she might just be saying it to make me feel good. Lol. She did ask for the formula. thank you so much for the formula. this one is a winner. I also added one TBSP of white vinegar. I wanted to add LJ but didnt have any. She thinks the Cobs dough is sweet but I don't see any sweetener in the ingredients so she could be mistaken. In any case I told her she can add 40 g of sugar if she'd like. this is from a lady who only liked to eat white bread so this is quite unusual for her. i was quite shocked when she told me how much she loved the Cobs loaf and i found out it's 100% ww.

What do you think of the crumb? After the second proof i don't think it rose much in the oven

More raisins/dates would make it sweeter as well. And if you leavened it with a starter, you could omit the vinegar.

I thought I was seeing a pic of one of my loaves.

The loaf is my multigrain bread but it is 100% whole grain made with natural levain. I use flax and don't recall using cinnamon but it is easy enough to add a teaspoon.

A cautionary statement. Your loaf may be 100% wheat but it may not be 100% whole grain. It may have AP flour in it,especially if it is particularly soft. When "Improver" is listed, it can be anything from AP flour to wheat gluten to separate additives. That doesn't make it bad but you just may want to know what you are buying/making. A wonderful, 100% whole grain loaf can be made and it can be relatively soft if you develop the dough properly-adequate hydration, built in soak and perhaps a little oil.

A note I have in my recipe is that the added grains (mix of any flaked grains I had on hand such as oatmeal,barley,rye,etc) tended to make the dough sticky-do not add extra flour! It s just a sticky dough when kneading/folding. Work with damp hands.

Another thought is to toast the sunflower seeds lightly-just the ones going onto the crumb. The ones on the outside will toast as they bake.

Chia seeds can easily absorb 10x their weight in water. I would look around for how to incorporate into a loaf. I don't know if hydrating them ahead of time is helpful or not. It can turn into a thick,slimy mass that won't incorporate if it isn't done properly. OTOH, just putting dry seeds into the dough may make them suck up the moisture on the baked crumb after the bake. A compromise may be in order-wet them, let them soak but incorporate them when they are still a soft semi-liquid.

Good luck!

Thanks for the warning. I've read the ingredients and Cobs says whole grain wheat flour. On their white loaves, it states wheat flour and if it's a combo they list both. I added vinegar as an improver. the only thing i soaked were the raisins because i know it won't get messy. everything else, just straight into the mix.