Wholegrain Seeded Loaf

On a quest for the perfect wholegrain loaf, I went on the hunt for wholegrain flour.

Note: I refer to wholegrain flour, with actual lumpy whole grains in it.

Wholemeal flour is milled from the whole grain, but it just so happens that Late Developer aka Dough Nuts aka his real proper name which he might tell you if you ask him nicely, wanted to find a recipe with actual whole grains in it.

I personally, have never been a fan of the granary loaf. I think that stems from childhood, when the only granary bread we ate was the bought stuff: an otherwise perfectly soft loaf in which awful surprise hard bits lurked.

So, granary hasn't been at the top of my To Do list, but since the request for whole grain was made...

My local supermarket (one beginning with S and ending in "ury's") stocked only two types of whole grain flour. One was Allinson's Country Grain and the other was own-brand Wholegrain Seeded.

This recipe involves the Wholegrain Seeded version but I've no doubt you could substitute any wholegrain or, indeed, wholemeal flour instead.

Because I find 100% wholemeal bread rather heavy going, I decided to use 50% strong white flour, to balance things out.

Thus, I bring you:

Wholegrain Seeded Loaf (Actually, I made a batard* but that's a whole nother story. If in doubt, pop it in a 2lb loaf tin and it'll do just fine)
*Careful with the autocorrect if you ever need to type that one.

250g/8 oz/1½ cups wholegrain seeded flour
250g/8 oz/1½ cups strong plain flour
1 tsp instant dried yeast
2 tsp salt
315g/10 fl oz/1⅓ cups water

In hindsight, I would have sprinkled in an extra handful or two of mixed seeds because the seed-effect was diluted by the addition of the white flour. As it is, the loaf was tasty but not especially seed-flavoured.

Mix it all together as usual and knead the dough on a clean surface for about 10 minutes until it looks like this:

Leave it to rise for about 45 minutes or until it has doubled in size.

When you return to the dough, give it a quick knead and make it into your loaf shape.

The loaf pictured above is a batard, which is like a fat baguette with pointy ends. I am working on the dough shaping tutorial to enable you to make fancy-shaped loaves too, but if you're new to all this, please just make a loafish shape and pop it in a tin.

Let the dough prove until it has doubled in size before baking at 230^oC/450F for five minutes then 180^oC/360F for 30 minutes (that's if it's in the tin - slightly less for a batard).

A properly cooked loaf sounds hollow when you bang on its bottom.

Now, I suppose you already know this but...

All* my recipes are now available in a convenient recipe card format. You can save it to your ebook reader, print from it or use it on screen without all the scrolling that comes from sifting through a verbose website in which someone will insist on waffling on about their children(!)
*OK, sometimes it's not totally up to date, but it is updated regularly and you will always have access to the latest edition.