Hi all, 

I am looking for tips on making toppings/seeds stick atop the bagels I bake.  I am thinking of making a solution of egg whites and water, and misting that solution over the toppings once on the bagel.  

Thoughts and suggestion would be very much appreciated!

Thanks, 

Michael

I tried to include a picture, but I'm not adept enough with my photo editor and the online host.  Maybe another time.  But, trust me, they look and taste good.

They're the Four-Seed Snack Crackers on page 122 of Brother Juniper's Bread Book by Peter Reinhart.

Grind 1 cup each sunflower and pumpkin seeds into a flour in the blender.  Also grind 1/2 cup flax seeds in the coffee grinder.  He has you grinding all three seeds together, but the flax seeds did not break down properly.  Mix with 3-1/2 cups ww flour (or ap if you must), 1 cup sesame seeds, 1 teaspoon salt, 5 tablespoons honey, and 1/2 cup oil; add 6-8 ounces of water as needed to make a ball of dough. Knead about 10 minutes "until smooth, firm, but elastic, satiny rather than tacky" about 10 minutes.  Then place in an oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap for at least 10 minutes (I left it overnight).**

Divide into six pieces.  I rolled each piece into a ball and flattened it.  Then I placed five of the flattened balls on a cookie sheet in the freezer for a few hours before placing them in a freezer bag.  They'll keep up to three months.  Roll today's dough out to about 1/8 inch thick.  (It was still stiff from the refrigerator, so I nuked it for a few seconds before rolling.)  I found that my Sil-Pat (little brother to the Roul-Pat) was adequate because the dough was oily enough, but he warns that you should re-flour as needed.  Then he has you use a biscuit cutter or a pizza roller knife to cut out round or diamond shapes, but I used a plastic dough scraper - gently - on my Sil-Pat and cut out random shapes.  I just wanted crackers and wasn't trying to impress the bridge club.

Finally, you can mist the top of the crackers with water and sprinkle with more sesame seeds or other toppings, but I didn't.  I just baked in a 340-degree F oven for 20-25 minutes until they're light golden brown.  You're warned to let them cool for at least 20 minutes so that they'll crisp up.

My first batch is now almost gone.  When I'm ready, I'll pull out another piece of dough, defrost it, and repeat.  I can keep the crackers coming with just a little effort.

Rosalie

**EDIT:  PLACE IN REFRIGERATOR - Details! Details!

I have been tinkering with PR's Basic Sourdough Bread recipe for a while and have come up with the following recipe, which I really enjoy baking and eating:

 Five-Grain Seeded Sourdough Bread

 (based on Peter Reinhart's Basic Sourdough Bread, The Bread Baker's Apprentice)

Firm Starter

4 oz. sourdough starter

4.5 oz bread flour

1/4 cup lukewarm water

Soaker

2 to 4 oz Bob's Red Mill 5-Grain Cereal

2.2 oz unsalted sunflower seeds (optional)

2.5 oz unsalted pumpkin seeds (optional)

0.2 oz salt (omit if seeds are salted)

3/4 cup boiling water (approx.)

Dough

20.25 ounces bread flour

0.5 ounce salt

Starter

Soaker

1 ½ to 1 ¾ cups lukewarm water

 Directions

          Day 1

1. To make firm starter, remove sourdough starter from refrigerator and allow to warm up for about 1 hour. Combine starter ingredients and knead just long enough to evenly distribute flour and sourdough starter. Spray zipper seal bag lightly with oil. Place firm starter in bag and seal. Allow to double at room temperature, approximately 4 hours. Refrigerate overnight.
2. Place cereal, seeds (if using), and salt in small bowl. Add boiling water to cover. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to sit at room temperature overnight.

Day 2

3. Remove starter from refrigerator 1 hour before making dough. Combine flour and salt in large mixing bowl. Add soaker and mix well. Remove starter from zipper bag, cut or tear into pieces, and add to flour mixture. Using large spoon or your hands, mix in enough water to bring dough together in a ball.
4. Allow dough to autolyse for 30-40 minutes. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead for 13-16 minutes, until dough passes the windowpane test. Dough should be firm but tacky, like French bread dough. Lightly oil a large bowl. Place dough in bowl, roll to coat with oil, and cover bowl with plastic wrap.
5. Ferment dough at room temperature for 3 to 4 hours or until it nearly doubles. Gently divide dough into two pieces and shape as desired. Mist dough with spray oil, cover loosely with plastic wrap or floured towel, and place in refrigerator.

Day 3

6. Remove loaves from refrigerator 3 to 4 hours before you plan to bake them. Make sure not to overproof. When the imprint of a finger poked gently into dough springs back slowly, the dough is ready to bake.
7. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F for 45 minutes to 1 hour with baking stone and steam pan in place. Slash loaves and transfer carefully to baking stone. Immediately pour 3/4 cup hot water into steam pan. Close oven and lower temperature to 450 degrees F. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate loaves to ensure even baking. Continue to bake for 10 to 20 minutes, until the loaves register 200 to 205 degrees F in the center.
8. Cool for 45 minutes before slicing.

 Note: If you want to make the bread in 2 days instead of 3, after dividing, shaping, and misting the dough in step 5, cover the loaves and allow to proof at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours, then bake as directed.

Does anyone have a good online source for small amounts of wheat seeds?  I have a very small plot of land (very small - 4'X4') and a I realize I won't get much of a yeild, but I want my kids to see how bread gets to the table from beginning to end.

I've found a few places that sell 3, 6, 9 pound bags online, but I need much less.  And, since I procrastionated, I suppose I'll need to grow spring wheat instead of winter.

Thanks!

I made Rose B. Levy's hearth bread today, which I've made a number of times before. This time I refrigerated the sponge overnight, as suggested, and everyone raved about it at our potluck. I am in the habit of putting in some amount of the King Arthur seed and grain mix to many of my loaves. In this recipe, rose suggests that seeds should be soaked before being added to dough so they incorporate better. Would the experts here recommend soaking the grain/seed mixture overnight in some water? I've used soakers before, but not quite in this way. Thanks for your advice. Beth

A few weeks ago, I finally got a copy of Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads.  While I've read the book (most of it several times), I hadn't actually tried any of his recipes until this weekend.  Yesterday and today, I made the Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread (his basic formula) for sandwiches next week and a modified version of his German-Style Transitional Many Seed Bread to have with dinner.  Both came out great, but since the many seed bread was the more interesting to me, that's what I decided to write about.

In his book, Reinhart uses the term "transitional" to refer to breads that contain some white flour along with the whole wheat flour.  All of his transitional recipes have a 100% whole wheat counterpart except for the many seed bread.  As a general rule, I try to follow recipes as written once before I begin tweaking, but decided against that approach this time.  Instead, I decided to replace the white flour in the biga with whole wheat flour and the whole wheat flour in the soaker with millet flour.  Why?

• I'm not opposed to using white flour, but prefer the taste of whole wheat in most circumstances.
• I was craving a dense bread, and using a gluten-free flour is certainly one way to achieve that.
• I thought that the mild, nutty flavor of millet flour would complement the seeds nicely.
• I had a need to use up some millet flour (hey, at least I'm honest).
• My (admittedly weak) understanding is that the highest-gluten flour should be in the biga, so I put the millet flour in the soaker instead.

Under the original formula, this bread contains 44.4% white flour, 44.4% whole wheat flour, and 11.1% rye flour.  Under my version, the percentages were 33.3% millet flour, 55.6% whole wheat, and 11.1% rye.  The recipe as written was also a bit large for me, so I reduced all amounts to 2/3 of what is in the book.

On Friday, I mixed the biga and soaker following the instructions in the book.  The soaker ended up a bit wetter than I wanted (I didn't realize how little water the millet flour would absorb), but other than that, things went smoothly.  On Saturday, I combined these items with the remaining ingredients.  Below you can see a photo of the final dough ingredients before mixing.  In addition to a small amount of flax seeds in the soaker, the final dough contains pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower seeds.  Summed up, these are 33.3% of the weight of the flour -- definitely "many seed".

I followed Reinhart's instructions for mixing and kneading.  Although the large amount of millet flour meant that the final dough did not pass the windowpane test, I was pleased that the normally coarse texture of the millet flour was greatly lessened as a result of the soaker.  As instructed, I let the final dough rise for around 50 minutes, then formed a batard and allowed it to proof for around 50 minutes.  The rises were somewhat lackluster, but much higher than I expected with such a high percentage of millet flour.  I baked with steam (something I'm still fairly new at) using Reinhart's instructions, but had no oven spring to speak of (probably as a result of overproofing yet again).  Since I set out to make a dense loaf however, this didn't bother me too much.  Crust and crumb photos are below:

The bread was certainly packed with seeds, but I found it to be delicious and very satisfying.  The millet flour contributed just the flavor I was hoping.  I tried toasting a few pieces, and the bread was even better this way; the toasting really brought out the flavor of the seeds.  However, one mistake became apparent with the first bite:  it was probably a bad idea to use whole pumpkin seeds.  I always eat them this way, so I tend to forget that there's an alternative, but the hulls definitely made thorough chewing important (and also a bit of a workout).  Sure enough, in looking at the photos of this bread in the book, it's pretty clear that hulled pumpkin seeds were used.

Overall, I'm still happy with this bread, and will definitely make it again.  This may also be the best use of millet flour I've found so far (though admittedly, those looking for a lighter loaf would probably want to use no more than 10%).  The pumpkin seed oversight is a bit of a disappointment, but still far better than the time I accidentally used whole sunflower seeds in a bread!