Ingredients

• 240g Rye sourdough starter.

For the pre-dough

* 70g whole meal flour
* 70g tepid water
* 1g dried yeast

For the seed mix

* 50g sunflower seeds
* 50g pumpkin seeds
* 120g of seed and grain mix ( I use 30g each of linseed,rolled oats,chopped rye and whole rye grains, but use what you prefer or have)
* 2g fine salt
* 210g boiling water
* 1/2 teaspoon of cumin seeds, (optional)

For the main dough

* 130g of whole meal flour
* 100g dark rye flour
* 90g water
* 10g fine salt
* 8g malt extract or Shipton mill diastatic malt flour ( See website for usage amount)
* 7g dried yeast

Method

Mix together pre-dough ingredients cover and rest at room temperature for 2 hours. Then put in the fridge overnight 15 to 17 hours to ripen.

Next prepare the seed mix. Place seeds in a dry frying pan and fry on a medium heat until a nutty smell starts to develop. Remove from the heat and add the other seed mix ingredients then add the boiling water, stir in water and cover and soak overnight 15 to 17 hours.

Next day in your stand mixer bowl , mix together the sourdough starter, pre-dough and seed mix and the main dough ingredients. I dissolve my malt extract in the water which I make tepid and add it that way for better distribution of the malt.

Now knead in stand mixer with dough hook for 6 minutes, the mix is thick and dense but also quite wet. So a stand mixer comes into its own here!
You can do this by hand but is really quite messy and hard work.

Once mixed cover and rest for 30 to 40minutes . Meanwhile grease you baking tin ( I use a non stick tin and this dough although wet releases from the tin easily without greasing). Then knead your dough for a further 5 minutes, then using a silicon spatula or similar, spoon the mixture into your loaf tin. You cannot form the dough into a shape as it’s too wet.

Cover your loaf tin and leave to rise at room temperature for 2 to 2.5 hours.
Preheat your oven 20 mins before to 250c, place your loaf in oven and add a tray of water in the bottom, bake for 15 minutes at 250c (fan 235) then turn down to 180c (165 fan) and remove water from oven. Bake for 45 minutes.
At this point you can either remove bread or to develop a nice crust remove loaf from tin and return to the oven for a further 12 to 14 minutes.

This loaf is best left for a day to mature the flavours before eating,
Because of the sourdough it will stay fresh for 8 to 10 days.

There are quite a few processes to making this bread but is simple to make,
And once you have tasted it you will want to keep making it !
It is a regular weekly bread in our house.

Enjoy and Danke schön