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Writer's pictureJake Swenson

Spring Bake

First I would like to recognize the double entendre in the title of this post and state for the record that I am not in high school anymore.


That’s out of the way. So the current pandemic has made our spring break with the kids a staycay rather than a vacay. The benefit of that is the ability to research and make one’s own formulae for bread to then share with the world. And yes, my glasses are rose hued.


I made three breads today. It was rad. Timing them all. Making preferments and other things and timing the proofs and bakes and such. I was dorking and stressing out at the same time. I will share one of the three here, but if you email or reach out by other means, I will provide the bonus two. This is the one I made up from my own hamster wheel.


Multi-seed/Multi-grain


650g bread flour

150g spelt flour

100g rye flour

170g levain (see below)

700g water (+50g if you need it)

5g instant yeast or 20g cake yeast

25g kosher salt

50g sunflower seeds (raw or roasted but not salted)

50g pumpkin seeds (same)

10g poppy seeds

15g flax seeds

15g black sesame seeds (of course you can use white sesame seeds)


Levain:

The night before combine a big T of your mature starter with 200g water and bread flour. Leave covered over night in a cool dry place. If you don’t have a mature starter shame on you. Also bookmark it and return.


Bread:

Mix everything up to the seeds in a bowl. Combine into a cohesive but relatively wet (77% hydration) dough and turn out. Work it. When you think you’ve worked it enough work it another five minutes. Hold the living mass of dough and spread a bit of flour on the bench. Place the dough onto the flour and shape a boule. What I mean is fold it in on itself until a cohesive circley thing forms. Turn this into your mixing bowl and let it rest for at least 1.5 hours. While watching Hulu combine your seeds, reserving 30g.


Preheat to oven to 450. Turn out the dough ball and press down lightly. Spread out the large portion of the seeds in the dough and fold over and over and over and over and over to combine and distribute. Divide in two with your bench scraper and press into a rectangle that’s about 10cm x 20cm. Fold the bottom third up and the top half down. Do that again and tuck the ends. Place on a baking sheet dusted with semolina, seam side down. Second proof 1 hour.


Beat an egg with 1T of water. Brush the loaves and divide the remainder seeds over the two. Split down the middle with a razor or 10 blade, whatever you have. Scramble the egg and eat it with a little shaved parm and red pepper. You earned it.


Put in the oven and drop the temp to 425. Bake for 45 min. Remove and cool and eat with a ton of salted butter.

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