"Woodstock" Bread - Whole Wheat with Lots and Lots of Seeds
I have a houseguest visiting from New Mexico. His theory is that "healthy" bread is bread with lots of seeds in it. We went over to the "Grateful Bread" store in Sacramento and he picked up a loaf of something they call "Woodstock" bread, a whole wheat loaf with lots of seeds in it. My friend thinks it's named after the little yellow bird in the Peanuts comic strip who would no doubt consider birdseed a gourmet addition to bread.
It was pretty good, so I had a hand at trying to duplicate it.
Initially I baked a 100% whole wheat loaf, 67% hydration, with a tablespoon each of sesame, poppy, and sunflower seeds and pine nuts. The dough was a bit dry so I added a bit of extra water. The resulting loaf didn't rise as much as I might have wanted, was a bit dense, and didn't really have as many seeds as the loaf from the "Grateful Bread" store. I'm not sure if the dryness and density of this first effort was due to absorption of water by the seeds or a peculiarity of whole wheat flour (which I usually don't use).
I tried a second loaf, throwing in three times as many of the same seeds plus an equal portion of flax seed. In that loaf I added the juice of an orange to the water on a whim and added 10% white bread flour, plus some brown sugar to give the yeast a bump. The result had about the right seeed content but the orange juice made it too tart for my taste.
I baked a third loaf using straight water with no orange juice. It came out pretty good, lots of seeds, nutty flavor, not too dense. I'm pretty happy with the formulation, and it comes pretty close to the loaf we bought at "Grateful Bread".
INGREDIENTS:
450g Whole Wheat Flour
50g Unbleached (white) Bread Flour
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1/2 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
3 Tablespoons poppy seeds
3 Tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
3 Tablespoons sunflower seeds
3 Tablespoons flax seeds
3 Tablespoons pine nuts
400g water
PROCEDURE:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix with a stand mixer.
Bake at 450F for 25 minutes.
RESULT:
A nice loaf with lots and lots of seeds. The pine nuts seem to add a nutty sort of flavor.
^Loaf Photo
^Crumb Photo
Comments
Jam packed with healthy ingredients. I bet this makes an excellent sandwich loaf.
Syd
One caveat on this recipe is that there are some reports of pine nuts sometimes messing up some people's sense of taste. The reports I read indicated it's temporary but can last several days. The pine nuts seem to add add a woodsy or nutty taste to the bread, but a gourmet chef with an impaired sense of taste might have serious problems from eating too many pine nuts.
Lovely crumb, ph_kosel! Mentioning of 'Woodstock' makes me feel sooooo aaauuuld!! :p
Re : pine nuts
I live in UK, so the problem you mentioned about pine nuts could be a differennt thing, but there're some issues with imported pine nuts from China leaving bitter taste for days for some consumers.
Pine nuts with bitter taste for days
The pine nuts in question are slightly smaller, shorter and rounder than more common kinds. I used it for a short while but fortunately I was OK with it myself. Though I stopped buying it as soon as I read the above thread and changed to their organic Italian ones. :p
lumos
I thought it might be worth mentioning that the "Woodstock" bread we got from the Greatful Bread store listed all the seed types I used except flax and also listed millet (which I didn't have handy). The label claimed they used "blue" poppy seeds - I have no idea what that is and didn't notice anything blue in their bread.
Obviously a person can tinker with this recipe, altering the proportion and type of seeds in the seed mix. The main thing I learned from this project are that adding a lot of dry seeds means you need to add some extra water, perhaps particularly with whole wheat flour.
I don't know about that being named for Woodstock of cartoon fame, its probably more for Woodstock of Peace Love and rebellion fame. I do know that seeded breads, whole wheat and so forth was a big deal back then (yes I'm that old but never was in the movement) and healthy food was the big thing (rebellion against tv dinners?) hence the rather inedible breads that were the big deal. I don't mind a good seeded bread, but will not eat bread so dense it could hold up buildings. (old teeth you know) but it does sound delicious, and will have to try a batch.
If you think pine nuts are resinous, try chewing pine gum (pine pitch) which was a big deal when I was a kid, we all did it!