flaxseed meal

After Easter extravaganza of hot cross buns, marzipans & lamb roast, it is time to at least make an effort to eat less heavy stuff. Which bread to start the new week? I remembered this recently revived post on flaxseed bread  : http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/flaxseedwheatbread

Read both Dan Lepard's recipe and Floyd's version, with all the comments, once again. The bread seemed exactly what I was looking for. I adore flaxseeds and they are part of every multigrain mix in my breads, but had never used in such high proportion or as a star ingredient. The comments from many TFLers about the bread being dense made it challenging enought to give it a try. So here is how it went -

I kept the basic quantities in the recipe. I have promised my husband no seeds in bread for few more days, so I settled on brown flaxseed meal. I was not ready to use flaxseeds without any pre processing. Used 100 gms flaxseed meal and made a hot soaker with 100 gms water. Kept  it in warm oven for 4 hours. Decided for RYW levain instead of IY. Along with soaker, made a RYW levain of 50 gms WWF & 50 gms RYW. The next question was to knead or not to knead. The more I thought over it, kneading seemed to be a better way. Kneading is delegated to my BM as it kneads better than me (or so I tell it to make it feel motivated).

After 4 hours, the levain was ready. I dumped the levain, soaker, 200 gms BF, 2 tsp agave nectar, 1 tsp salt and 100 gms old refrigerated stock of RYW in BM and set it on dough cycle. I did not consider the water in soaker in my final hydration. Decided to add extra flour if needed. But did not need - the dough was beautiful as is. Soft, tacky and extremely easy to work with (ok so my BM did most of the hard work in the first half, but still it was a pleasure to watch the dough being kneaded). Checked after kneading was done to see if extra cycle was in order but it was good to rise. Did bulk ferment in BM itself. Looking at the dough after kneading was done, I was expecting a decent rise, but knowing the high amount of flaxseeds, would have been happy with anything between one and half times to double. At the end of dough cycle, it had more than doubled. Happy time.

Took out the dough and shaped roughly into a ball to give bench rest of 30 minutes. The dough was so easy that it did not need any flour or oil on work surface. The dough shaped beautifully with slightly wet hands. Put my claypot in oven to preheat at 500F. After 30 minutes, shaped the dough in a tight ball and placed in proofing basket, which was generously dusted with rice flour (didn't want to repeat my earlier blooper, but in this case it was probably excessive). Kept the dough seam side down as I didn't want to score. Another 30 minutes and the dough was ready for oven. Inverted on parchment paper, reduced oven temp to 475F and put in closed DO for 30 minutes. When I removed the cover after half an hour, I had to do a happy jig. The oven spring far exceeded my expectation. Kept for another 20 minutes uncovered at 450F. Then kept in turned off oven on rack, with door partially open for 30 minutes. Cooled overnight on wire rack. Today morning cut into a crusty and surprisingly light bread, which tastes amazing. Of course, it is not as light as white bread, but for this amount of flaxseed meal, I feel it did a great job. Thanks to Floyd & Dan Lepard for this winner. Here are pics of loaf and the crumb shot :

No-Knead Multigrain Seed and Nut Loaf

A previous blog:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20460/banana-saga-%E9%95%B7%E7%AF%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B

Last December a posting by Jaydot caught my interest http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21186/huge-amount-seeds-and-sugar
Her sister in law had brought a recipe back from South Africa, which seem a bit strange.

Mini Oven suggested it might be South African Seed Bread, while PmcCool suggested it could be a variation on the Cape Seed Loaf.

After I spent some time seeing what Google had to offer on these subjects I concluded the two things they all had in common was a lot of seeds and no sourdough in sight. It seemed like a fun formula to play with, so I set out trying to come up with a reasonable sourdough version of a seed loaf.

By the end of February, I had a reasonably satisfactory loaf - on my fifth try. When I compared notes with Jaydot, I found that she had independently gotten a loaf that her sister in law found acceptable as well.

I picked up her use of caraway seed and maple syrup as something I wanted to try. So, I dropped the Chia seed and brown sugar I had used, and added her idea of maple syrup and caraway seed. Both proved their worth in the eating of my version number 6.

Number Six had nine (9) types of seed, two (2) types of nuts; six (6) types of flour plus maple syrup and toasted sesame seed oil. I was afraid to calculate the calorie count, but I am certain a person could gain weight on a diet of this bread and water, alone.

The loaf was 718 grams going into the oven and 665 grams at the time it came out of the oven. The instant internal temperature reading was 209ºF (98ºC).

The crumb was as nice, if not better, than the previous version 5 and both v-5 and v-6 were by far the best of the six loaves tested thus far. Texture wise, I feel the better crumb is due to the minimal kneading. The first 4 test loaves were all kneaded gently, but in a rather normal letter fold method common to most of my loaves. I felt that the extremely high nut and seed content did more damage to the gluten during kneading than could be offset by any benefits gained. So, in both v-5 and v-6, I basically switched to a no-knead method, and it seems to have made a major improvement in the openness of the crumb.

All six versions had excellent keeping properties, when kept at room temperature in a simple a bread box.

The sourdough was a 3 build levain using KAF AP flour, and was a baker's 94.2%.

The final rise for this loaf was 7 hours in a proof box at 82ºF( 27.8ºC). By that point it was pressing tightly against the FSFilm. I removed the FSFilm, scored top with 1 whole length center scoring. Bread pan place in a Turkey Pan. The bread pan was elevated from direct bottom contact by two SS knives.

The oven stones were removed from the cold oven. One cup of water was brought to a boil and the boiling water then poured into bottom of the turkey pan and the lid placed on at once, and the turkey pan and its contents were all placed in the cold oven on the lowest rack position. The oven was set to 450ºF (232º C).

With this fabricated "Dutch Oven" - formed from the turkey pan - resting at the lowest position, the constant heat of the electric oven's lower element, while raising the oven's internal heat to its highest setting, maintains the bottom of the "Dutch Oven" well above boiling temperature for 15 to 18 minutes. Steam visibly issues from the oven vent from about 3 minutes into the baking until about 18 minutes.

At 20 minutes, the Dutch Oven's lid was removed, oven heat set to 400ºF (204º C) for the balance of the baking, and the oven door held open by about 1/2" (12 mm) to vent any steam during the remaining 25 minutes of the baking. At the end of the total 45 minute baking, the oven was turned off and the loaf removed from both oven and bread pan. The loaf was placed on wire to cool for two hours. Then it was placed in a bread box at room temperature overnight, before being cut.

At this point, I have no ideas on what I may do different when I bake version 7. In fact, I might just repeat making this same formula, before trying any other possible improvements. Perhaps, that will change
but, for the moment, I am satisfied. ;-)

=====Update: March 18, 2011

Version 7 Seed Loaf has a few changes and , to my taste, is even better. A PDF with full details and photos can be seen at this link:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_MScoZfDZkwZDNlNzk3ZjktYmQ3NC00YWZjLWI1MTgtOTg1MmMxNTM1NGZk&hl=en

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110307 Next blog:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22562/sourdough-crackers