Seeded Semi-wholemeal Bread.

I started making my own bread about 6 weeks ago. After far too many schoolboy errors, I finally have a staple loaf that I'm happy to eat daily.
I wanted a bread that would fit happily in the toaster so I wanted it contained by a tin bake, but also I wanted it to sit happily alongside a soup and be flavoursome and healthy-ish.

Ingredients

• 350g Strong white bread flour
• 100g Wholemeal bread flour
• 50g Oat Bran
• Dried Rosemary (optional)
• Poppy seeds (optional)
• Sunflower seeds (optional)
• Brown Linseeds (optional)
• 2 tbsp Rolled oats (optional)
• 1 tsp Salt
• 7g Easy-bake yeast
• 280ml warm water
• 30g butter
• 2 tbsp Olive oil
• 1 tbsp Golden syrup
• Room temp milk to brush top of loaf.

 Method

1. Sieve white flour and salt into a large bowl.
2. Add as much Poppy seeds and Sunflower seeds as you want, and optional sprinkling of Rosemary.
3. Add Wholemeal flour, Oat bran, then yeast. Mix with a fork.
4. Boil the kettle and pour 150ml boiling water into a jug or bowl.
5. Add the butter to this water and melt.
6. Stir in the golden syrup and olive oil and then about 130ml cold water.
7. Add liquid mixture to the flour mixture whilst stirring.
8. Knead in the bowl briefly to get all the dry and wet mixed together.
9. Leave for 10 minutes
10. Place dough on a floured or oiled surface. (Up to you, I usually make the choice depending on how wet/sticky the dough is) and knead for 10 minutes. Oil the bowl slightly, place the ball of dough back in the bowl and turn it to give it a thin coat of oil. Place a clean damp tea towel or cling film over the bowl and leave for about 45 mins to rise. During the 45 mins pre-heat the oven to 200deg c/Gas 6
11. Punch down the dough (Press your fingers into it and it will deflate) Put the dough back on floured or oiled surface and knead for a few minutes. Press out to about 25cm round, treat like a hexagon and fold in the 6 sides to the centre. Turn it over and shape to fit a 900g or 23cm x 13cm x 7cm greased tin. Punch to fill tin base, cover with damp cloth or oiled cling film, and leave until risen an inch or so above the the tin.
12. When risen, brush the top gently with room temp milk, and/or dust lightly with flour (I haven't done these both together yet, might cause a black hole or something!) Chuck in the oven for 10 mins, then lower the temperature to 180deg c/Gas 4. Cook for approx another 25 mins.
13. Check after this time. Loaf should have a nice hollow sound when tapped on the base. (I'm sure someone must have made a loaf drum set. Will check uToob later) If happy with the sound, leave in the tin for 10 mins then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool.
14. Eat. 

I then went free-form with the loaves, before then containing slightly in a 9" x 9" tray which just about works :)

9th April 2012 - I knocked up a little Sun-dried tomato and basil loaf for The Oxford Bake Off recently.

 It was a little experimental number, and blow me down, IT WON!

It was pretty much based on the normal bread but with added cut up Sun-dried toms and some basil paste. I'll use more quality ingredients at some point :)

The poor thing just got quickly put together because I was completely focussed on brownies and cake, Id didn't get a good photo, just got dumped on a plate for presentation at the Bake Off, and the gorgeous little fella repaid my lack of effort by winning, and it won me one of these....

..from Bakery Bits, which allowed me to make gorgeous loaves like these....

Hmmm, not a lot of love for Toni Collette :( Guess it's just you and me on the desert island Toni.

Mmmmm.....

Anyway, back to a tune. Before settling on using a tune that I happened to be listening to during the bake, I did consider either something directly linked to the post, or something along the lines of all those twitter word games #breadsongs #cakesongs etc etc. But I'll stick with a listened to tune for now.

#breadsongs

Seven seeds of Rye
Wholemeal of the Moon
Yellow Sub
Stairway to Leaven
....feel free to add your own :)


The Awesomeness that is MUSE - New Born.

(Muse also did Bap of the Problematique, and covered House of the Rising Bun :) )