The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

No-Knead whole wheat and flaxseed

BostonMaria's picture
BostonMaria

No-Knead whole wheat and flaxseed

Hello everyone -

I took Lahey's No-Knead recipe for Pane Integral, and experimented with it a little bit. I used 2 cups of whole wheat and 1 cup bread flour and 1/4 cup of flax seed. The water, salt, and yeast amounts are the same.

Everything looked pretty much identical to the 100% bread flour recipe, but when I baked it in the Dutch oven the center of the loaf is sunken. The taste is and the crust is crunchy, but I'm not sure why the center of the bread didn't rise (or maybe it fell?).  Any ideas?

I have pics but I don't know how to upload them. There are some nice holes to the crumb, but don't know yet how to upload them, unfortunately.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

because of the additional 55 g of Chia seed which also swell and make a gel around the seed retaining moisture.  It took 20 minutes longer for my loaf to finish.  I thought it brown enough to remove but for safety sake goosed it with my meat thermometer.  It had only 75°C in the middle!  I shoved it back into the oven (maybe should have covered it) and waited until the thermometer reached 94°C.  It took a while for the middle to come up to temp but I was glad I had left it in at about 190°C to finish.  Had I taken it out, the middle not baked thru, it would have fallen while cooling and when cut, shown a gooey middle.  

My theory is that flax and chia hold a good deal of moisture inside the loaf preventing it from leaving as steam too easily.  One does get a nice crumb but the bake takes longer.  If adding flax to a non-flax formulated recipe, it is sometimes a good idea to add equal amounts of water or a little bit more.  To prevent the loaf from getting too dry with the extra long baking time.

There are numerous directions to posting pics on the site. Looks in the FAQs file at the top of the page.  The trick is to get the sizes cut down to size before downloading.  At least I think that is the major problem.  Start by opening a window and typing, move your curser to where you want to post a photo and click on the little green tree in the tool bar at the top of the window. 

BostonMaria's picture
BostonMaria

both the photo tip and the flax seed tip! I'll give it another try with the flax, because I absolutely love the taste of flax and whole wheat.

BostonMaria's picture
BostonMaria

Tastes great, and it may not be evident from the picture, but there are some nice holes in the crumb. It just didn't rise in the oven. I may lessen the amount of seeds next time (1/4 cup), and then leave it to cook longer, as has been suggested.