Recipe adapted from Sally's Baking Recipes
Makes 2 loaves
Ingredients:
1. 500g flour (11-12.5% protein content)
2. 415ml cooled or cold water (77 - 84% of flour's weight)
3. 10g sea salt (2 tsp) (2% of flour weight)
4. 10 fresh yeast (2% of flour weight)
Directions:
To prepare the wheat kernels:
1. Bring to boil 1 part whole wheat kernels with 2 parts water. I usually use 200 ml whole wheat kernels and 400 ml water.
2. If you are using whole wheat kernels or rye kernels, once boiling, reduce heat and let it simmer boils for 30 minutes. Then set aside and let it soak the liquid for another 30 minutes.
If you are using cracked wheat kernels or cracked rye kernels, once boiling, reduce heat and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Then set aside and let it soak the liquid for another 15 minutes.
3. Let it cool down for 2 hours. When they are cooled down, you can use them for the bread, and refrigerate or freeze the left-overs.
To make the bread:
4. In a mixing bowl, add 415g distilled water and the 10g fresh yeast and mix well with a spatula. You can make your own distilled water by boiling water and letting it cool down.
5. In another bowl, add 500g flour and 10g sea salt and mix well.
6. Add the flour mixture bit by bit into the water. Don't worry if it looks wet and sticky, but it should be a little firm, and not looking like liquid.
7. Cover and let it rest for 1 - 2 hours (first rise) (2 hrs is best).
8. Add sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, chai seeds, the cooked wheat kernels and the flaxseeds. The dough is sticky, but not a level wet mixture. If you round it up, it could still hold its shape before slowly flattening out.
9. Divide the dough into two portions and transfer to a bread loaf tin each.
10. Sprinkle pumpkin seeds, flaxseeds and chia seeds on top of the dough. (If you don't have the time to rest them in the fridge, you can bake them right away. If so, be sure to use 20g yeast instead of 10g.)
11. Cover tightly in plastic wrap and rest them in the fridge overnight (second rise). The longer you rest it in the fridge, the more flavorful it will be. You can rest it up to 3 days.
12. The following morning or when you are ready to bake it, pre-heat oven to 250 deg C.
10. Remove from the fridge and score it with a sharp knife with a few cuts on the surface (optional, for aesthetics).
11. Place bread in the oven middle top tray of the oven.
12. To get a golden crisp, pour a glass of cold water into the oven bottom tray and close the oven's door. Turn down temperature to 220 deg C.
13. After 15 minute, open the oven door for 5 seconds to vent all remaining steam and remove any water left on the bottom tray.
14. If you are using oven proof glass loaf tin, take the bread out of the tin and put it back to the oven only with the parchment paper. If you are using metal loaf tin, you can skip this step.
15. Lower the oven temperature to 200 deg C (Venting the steam is critical to letting the crust get crispy) for 30 mins or until the bread turns golden. For best result, half way through, you can remove parchment paper from the loaf tin once bread has firmed up.
16. If you have a digital thermometer, place it into the middle of the dough now and bake for another 20 - 30 mins. When the core temperature reaches 90 - 98 deg C, or when the crust turns golden, your bread is done. It will likely take 35 - 45 mins in total. You can test by taking the bread out and tapping on its back. If it sounds hollow, it is done.
17. Remove from the oven and let it cool completely for at least an hour before slicing it. If you slice it hot, the steam will escape and the inside will turn gummy.
Tips:
You can add 100-200g sunflowers seeds into the dough if you wish. You can also add cooked what or rye kernels. You can sprinkle with rolled oats with flaxseeds, sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds instead of rolled oats too, or you can do without.
Additional Information:
C and J love this bread.
I organic flour from Salling with a protein content of 11%.
Since the water in Denmark is hard, I prefer to use boiled and cooled water as distilled water. This softens the water and helps to give the bread the chewy texture.
I prefer to use fresh yeast for its gentle, steady rise and complex, slightly sweet flavor profile.
Keep the salt away from direct yeast and don't add it to the water with the yeast. The concentrated salt can dehydrate and kill yeast cells. Instead mix the salt into the flour and dissolve your yeast in the water first before adding the flour and salt mixture.
First rest: Cover and let the dough rest for 2 hours on the kitchen counter until it doubles its size.
Second rest: Half fill a loaf bread tin and cover it so that the cold fridge air doesn't dry out the top skin of your dough. Then let the dough rest in the fridge for a longer fermentation time, which helps the yeast to develop deeper taste profiles for 12 to 24 hours. The low temperature (2-5 deg C) dramatically slows down the yeast, but the enzymes in the flour keep working. This breaks starches down into simple sugars, giving the bread a deeply aromatic flavor, a highly extensible structure and a beautifully blistered crust.
Bake cold: If it is puffy and full of air the next morning, do not deflate it. Take it straight from the fridge score the top and put it directly into the pre-heated 250 degree C oven. Placing it in a loaf pan or a glass container in the fridge means that you can bake it as in as it is shaped. Avoid touching or poking it too hard as it can easily deflate and collapse.
Baking straight from the fridge has an added advantage as it maximizes your oven spring. The cold moisture inside the dough will turn to steam the moment it hits the heat, causing the bread to puff dramatically and creating a lighter bread and a beautifully crisp, blistered crust.
Glass loaf container trap steam around the sides. For a perfectly even, crispy crust all around, carefully tip the bread out of the glass loaf container for the last 5 minutes of baking and place the naked loaf directly on the oven rack.
Score immediately: Cold dough is firm, making it easier to cut clean slashes with a razor right before baking. Do this right before it goes into the oven.
Place them in the oven at 250 deg C, and splash a glass of water into the lower tray to generate steam that gives it a golden crust. Close the oven door and reduce the temperature to 230 deg C and let it bake for 15 mins. If you have a digital thermometer, insert it into the middle of the loaf after 15 mins. Then lower the temperature to 200 deg C and bake for another 30 mins or until golden or until the temperature of the bread reaches 90 - 98 deg C. Half way though, once the bread has firmed up, you can remove the parchment paper, and put it back into the bread tin and back into the oven.
Aim for 90 - 98 degree C. If it is under 90 degree C, the center will be sticky and wet, although it will still tastes yummy.
If your dough hasn't double its size in the fridge the next morning, leave it on the kitchen counter (still covered) at room temperature for 30 - 60 mins. Once the warmth kickstarts the yeast and it has fully risen, score it and bake it immediately.
If you wish to bake right away, let it rest for two hours in a glass container instead of 20-30 mins. You also need to increase the fresh yeast to 20g.
If you are using wholewheat flour, you will need to increase the total liquid by 5-10% of the total flour weight, in this case 50g of water.
You can also add wheat or rye kernels into the bread. Here is how to prepare the kernels:
1. Bring to boil 1 part whole wheat kernels/ whole rye kernels with 2 parts water. I usually use 200 ml whole wheat kernels and 400 ml water.
2. If you are using whole wheat kernels or rye kernels, once boiling, reduce heat and let it simmer boils for 30 minutes. Then let it soak the liquid for another 30 minutes.
3. If you are using cracked wheat kernels or cracked rye kernels, once boiling, reduce heat and let it simmer boils for 5 minutes. Then off the heat and let it soak the liquid for another 15 minutes.
4. Then drain and let it cool down. When they are cooled down, you can use them for the bread, and refrigerate or freeze the left-overs. (I like to spread it on a large plate in a single layer so that it cools down faster).
5. You should add the cooked, drained and cooled wheat kernels near the very end after the first rise. In our case, adding them after the first rise and before popping it into the fridge for the night. Adding them too early will ruin your bread because the sharp edges of the cracked kernels act like tiny knives, cutting the gluten strands as they try to form. Waiting until the end ensures a strong dough structure that can support heavy grains.
References:
Spread the kernels on a large plate, and it will cook down faster.
We use organic wheat flour from Føtex Supermarket
Add 10g sea salt (2% of flour weight)
Add 20g fresh yeast (10g if you are resting the dough in the fridge overnight)
Add 415g of water.
You can use multigrains such as chia seeds, pumpkin seeds.
After 2 hours of resting, add 50g of sunflower seeds.
Add 100g of cooked wheat kernels.
Mix well.
This is how it looked like with the grains mixed in.
Divide into two portions and place them in a read loaf tin each.
Sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top.
Sprinkle flaxseeds on top.
Sprinkle chia seeds on top.
Cover tightly in plastic wrap and rest them in the fridge overnight (second rise) for 12 to 24 hours. The longer you rest it in the fridge, the more flavorful it will be. You can rest it up to 3 days.
The following morning.
Remove the dough from fridge the following day. Score immediately.
Close-up
Place them in the oven at 250 deg C.
Splash approx. 100ml of water into the lower tray to generate steam that gives it a golden crust.
Close the oven door and reduce the temperature to 230 deg C and let it bake for 15 mins.
After 15 mins, open the door to let the steam out.
Then lower the temperature to 200 deg C and bake for another 30 mins or until golden (the digital thermometer reaches 90 - 98 deg C).
Once done, remove from the oven and let it cool completely for at least an hour before slicing it. If you slice it hot, the steam will escape and the inside will turn gummy.
Close-up :-)
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