Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Sunflower seed bread with rye sourdough (Mellow Bakers: March)


Our final Mellow Bakers bread for March is sunflower seed bread with rye sourdough. I was not a big fan of the sunflower seed rye from the BBAC, so I just made half of the recipe.

Last night, I made a sourdough starter and a rye soaker. I couldn't find rye chops, so I used some coarse rye meal, covered with boiling water. Today, I toasted some sunflower seeds and then mixed everything together (bread flour, salt, instant yeast, water, starter, soaker, seeds, and malt syrup). The dough was really, really sticky. I knew Andrea had given the dough a couple of stretch-and-folds to help strengthen it. I did one stretch-and-fold in the middle and it definitely helped, although I still struggled to shape the dough at the end.

I baked it with steam for about 30 minutes, and then ran out to the grocery store while hubby made our dinner (plain ol' grilled cheese for the kids, cheese-mustard-ham for me, and cheese-ham-mustard-sauerkraut-banana-peppers for himself)...unfortunately, he didn't think to take a picture of the loaf before he sliced it for the sandwiches.


The bread and the sandwiches were okay. The little guy didn't like his at all and the little girl picked out all of the sunflower seeds and put them on my plate (no surprises there). Hubby loved his sandwiches; mine was okay.

Definite winner for March: whole wheat levain with multigrain soaker; I think everything else will go onto the "will not make again" list.

1 comment: