My wife Chrissie loves sourdough bread with plenty of grains and seeds. You can make up your own mix of your favourite grains and seeds or you can buy mixes from a health food store or specialty suppliers of bread making ingredients. These can include but not be limited to granary flakes, crushed wheat, kibbled soy, kibbled rye, linseed, rolled oats, sunflower seeds, sesame seed, pumpkin seed, poppy seed.
I use a ratio of 25% of the weight of the dough to which you are adding the grains and seeds. For example 500gm of flour will yield an 900gm loaf. Therefore I would add 225gms of grains and seed to this.
It is very important to fully knead your base dough first as it is very difficult to develop a nicely structured loaf if you have tried to knead it with the grains in at the beginning.
It is just as important to soak the grains and seeds to soften them as they can be difficult to digest and will draw much of the moisture from your dough during fermentation. I soak the grains and seeds in water at a ration of 50% of the grain and seed weight. I add salt at this soaking stage at the rate of 2% of the weight of the grains and seeds to re-balance the overall salt ratio in the final loaf. I do the soaking at the same time I prepare the starter. Therefore for 200gms of grains and seeds I would use 100mls of warm water and 4gms of salt. Because the grains soak up all the water there is no need to strain the grains.
Recipe
500gm of flour
200ml of prepared (activated) starter
200ml of warm water
10gms of salt
Soak the following in a bowl when you activate your starter
225gms of mixed grains and seeds
110mls of warm water
4gms of salt
Mix the first four ingredients together to form a dough then turn out onto the bench and knead until you have a smooth and elastic dough.
Pat the dough out into a rectangle then spread the soaked grains and seeds over the dough then knead gently until all is incorporated evenly.
Return to the bowl, cover with a damp cloth and allow to ferment for 2.5 to 3 hours. Shape into a loaf then set in a basket, into a tin or on a tray and allow to prove for 2.5 to 3 hours then bake at 240C for 40 to 45 minutes. Alternatively refrigerate overnight after proving for 2 hours then remove from the refrigerator next morning and let it prove another 2 to 3 hours before baking. This is a great way of ensuring you can serve fresh bread for lunch
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