Seedy Bread

The German way

250 grams whole wheat flour

250 grams spelt flour

10 grams (2 tsp) yeast

10 grams (2 tsp) salt

1 1/2 Tbsp caraway seeds

1 Tbsp toasted sunflower seeds

340 ml lukewarm water

2 Tbsp honey

3 Tbsp of your favorite seeds (we use a mix of pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, and sunflower seeds)

How to do it

Soak the mix of your favorite seeds in a cup of water. These seeds will go on top of the bread and soaking them prevents them from burning too bad.

In a big bowl, mix together both flours, the salt, and the caraway seeds. In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water. This may take a few minutes and the yeast should get a little bubbly/foamy. That means it’s ALIVE.

Pour the yeasty water into the flour mixture, add the honey, and mix until it comes together in a sticky dough.

Knead the dough (10ish minutes by hand or 8ish minutes with a kitchenaid) until it looks uniform and stretchy. Shape it loosely into a ball and drizzle it with a little olive oil to reduce stickiness. Place it in a bowl that’s also lightly oiled and cover with a damp dish towel. Let it sit for about an hour, until it’s doubled in size.

Gently scrape the dough out of the bowl and fold in the toasted sunflower seeds. Try not to overwork the dough so you don’t knock out too much air, but do your best to evenly work in the seeds. This is hard to do and we haven’t really nailed it yet, but it doesn’t really matter.

Shape the dough into a log shape that’s a little thinner than your loaf tin. Grease your tin and place the dough inside. Drain your soaking seeds and pour them on top of the dough, gently pressing them in. It’s ok if they slide down the sides a bit.

Cover the bread again with a damp dish towel and let it sit another ~45 minutes, until it doubles in size. But don’t overprove or Paul Hollywood will have a conniption.

While your bread is proving, preheat the oven to 480 degrees and place one baking tray in the middle (for the bread) and one near the bottom (for some water to create steam while the bread bakes).

When it’s time to bake, carefully pour ~1 cup of water into the bottom tray and put the loaf tin on the middle one. Bake for 21 minutes. If the seeds on top start to burn, you can cover the bread with tin foil while it finishes baking.

When it’s done, let it cool then flip it out of the loaf tin. Enjoy with some honey, butter, and salt on a porch in Berlin.