No knead multiseed bread

One bowl, no kneading and a heavenly, nutty, crunchy, loaf that is lighter than you expect . It packs quite the protein punch too!

Ingredients

370g (faina integrala) a mix of organic wholemeal flour and spelt flour (and in these pictured some rye too)
200g (faina normala) strong white organic bread flour
300g of seeds: 100g (Seminte de In) Flaxseeds, 100g (Seminte de Dovleac) Pumpkin seeds and 100g (Seminte de Floarea Soarelui) Sunflower seeds or 100g (susam) sesame seeds or 100g (Mac) poppy seeds
2 tsp (sare) salt
25g (drojdie) fresh yeast (or dried and use according to the packet)
3 tablespoons olive oil or flaxseed oil or or cold pressed sunflower oil or best of all hemp oil
1 tablespoon treacle, carob molasses (sirop de roscova) or pomegranate molasses (sirop de rodie) – something sweet to speed the yeast up
450 ml (apa) warm “jammy water” (the temperature of a bath)

How To

Make the “Zero Waste” jammy water. Find an almost empty jam or honey jar (in this case marmalade) where you can’t actually get at the last bits of jam and fill with water and shake. Use the jammy water for the bread.

If you are using bread tins then oil well or paper and oil. This recipe is very good for free form loaves, in which case just oil your trays or flour and polenta your trays as I often do.

Put all the flours in the bowl

Pour on the yeast and jammy water mixture and mix together with a large spoon. Add the oil. The mixture will look unappetising and uninspiring – akin to very very thick glue. Fear not.

Leave to rise until double in volume. Put a damp tea towel over the top so it just touches the dough…when I notice the tea towel rising above the bowl rim it reminds me the dough is risen! #Plasticfree
Push the dough down and add the seeds and the salt. Work in the seeds and divide into three or four depending on how big you want your loaves. Shape the dough into balls if free forming or oblongs if baking in tins. Allow to double again in volume.

Bake at 250C for 18-25 mins. Now if your domestic oven doesn’t go up to 250C put it at its maximum setting and bake a little longer. When you take them out knock them on the bottom and they must sound hollow. If its the first time and you are nervous then cut through and check – better to sacrifice aesthetics and have cooked bread. If you have space put a bowl of water at the bottom of the oven – my oven is usually too crowded with loaves jammed in!

This bread lasts a good 3 to 4 days and is great with sweet stuff and savoury. It also toasts well too – as the seeds then become all “nutty” in flavour. On the nutrition front this packs a hefty protein level of 20%.

No knead sour cherry and fennel bread

heavenly fragrant ….what blue cheese was made for

There is the smell of freshly baked bread…and then there is this. A waft of sharp sour cherries and sweet aniseed that stops short of being sickly soapy greets you as it bakes. Slather with butter hot from the oven or wait and let it grace your cheeseboard. Move over walnut bread.

inspired by a loaf made by Dan Lepard

Ingredients & How To – sourdough version

Make a quantity of No knead sourdough multiseed bread but without the seeds

Instead of 350g seeds we want here 200g dried sour cherries, and the dried ones matter because they have a stronger more concentrated taste, reconstituted with boiling water or tea and then weighed to be approx 350g A word of warning, I happily chucked my cherries into a bowl, poured liquid over them and when plumped up a bit chucked them into the bread…. only then realising that being local Romanian dried sour cherries the whole being stoned idea was a bit hit and miss. hmmm. I issued a health warning to my friends.

2 tablespoons of fennel seeds.

I made two round loaves here. The texture was just lovely – as usual I probably could have left a bit longer to rise. I baked until they sounded hollow at 250C. And they were devoured and declared the favourite when served in a bread basket.

Ingredients and How To – regular yeast version

Makes two loaves in loaf tins. Four small hand shaped small round loaves, as you wish to create.

350g wholemeal flour (faina integrala) (and in these pictured some rye too)
200g rye flour (faina de secara)
some strong white organic bread flour for shaping and dusting
200g of dehydrated cherries after plumping up with some boiling water
2 tsp (sare) salt
3 level tsp fennel seeds plus more for decoration
25g (drojdie) fresh yeast (or dried and use according to the packet)
1 tablespoon treacle, carob molasses (sirop de roscova) or honey – something sweet to speed the yeast up
400-450 ml (apa) warm water (the temperature of a bath) plus the water the cherries were rehydrated in

Pour boiling water over the cherries. Cool. separate, checking for stones.

Crumble yeast into bath temperature water. Add honey. wait unti it froths a little.

Add the yeast liquid to the flour and mix to a paste. Check the texture – rye flour is often very “thirsty” so it can take the extra cherry water – up to 100ml. So add that too to create a thick mix. Cover with a damp towel until doubled in volume.

When doubled in volume, knock down. Add salt , fennel seeds and cherries.

Knead what is quite a soft dough a little and shape into loaves or dough pieces to place in tins.

Set oven to the max setting – my oven goes to 250C but 220C is fine.

Allow the loaves to again double in volume. Piant with egg wash if you want to or tomato passata and water wash as a vegan alternative and sprinkle some fennel seeds on top.

Bake until the loaves when tapped sound hollow – 14-18 minutes for small loaves, 18-22 minutes larger loaves.

No knead sourdough multiseed bread

my go to multiseed gets the sourdough treatment

Remember spaceships that used to pop and fizz in your mouth? well this bread with the seeds that ‘pop” is kind of the adult equivalent. kind of. I know some people like my white bread addicted sister will never be convinced but I like the satisfying crunch factor all the same.

Ingredients for 3 small loaves

300g sourdough starter
400g organic strong white flour
100g organic rye flour
2 tsp salt

350g seeds: sunflower, pumpkin, flax, sesame,poppy
350g warm water

How To

Mix all the ingredients (except the salt and the seeds) together as if making cake batter, in a large bowl.

Cover with a wet tea towel and leave at room temperature

With a bowl of water to wet your hands in, to stop the dough sticking, fold it every 30 minutes for 3-4 hours. If you don’t it will not be a disaster. If this sounds like hassle, think of it as “bread therapy”…there is just something very very relaxing and rewarding about messing around with bread dough and this should be timed to be done in the evening.

Put in the fridge over night to rest and in fact all of the next day… the following night is baking night

The next day….Remove from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature and start to prove

Now add the salt and the seeds (sometimes I have forgotten the salt…thats when the bread has ended up with a “salt crust”)

Shape and form into the loaves – freestyle or in tins

Allow to prove – 2-4 hours

Bake at 250C or as hot as your oven allows. The sourdough version of the bread takes longer than the yeast version – it seems to take 30-40 minutes. Bake until they sound hollow when you tap them.