Sunflower Seed Bread with Pâte Fermentée

Sunflower Seed Bread is a traditional German bread, called Sonnenblumenbrot (Sonne = sun; blummen = flower and brot = bread). The seeds provide an aromatic flavor and a toasty crunch.

This is one of the breads the Mellow Bakers made in October. I didn’t have time to bake it last month so I saved it for November. It took me three days to make it from start to finish. It’s not really a 3-day process, but I wanted to bake it in the evening, so I adapted the process to fit my schedule.

 

Hamelman’s formula utilizes a preferment that is made ahead of time and rests on the counter for 14 to 16 hours. I wanted the flexibility of making this bread in the evening after work so I made the Pâte Fermentée the night before and let it ferment in the refrigerator until I was ready to use it. The preferment I used is similar to the one we made in the BBA Challenge and can be used after resting on the counter for a couple of hours or refrigerated for up to three days. It is made with a blend of all-purpose and bread flour rather than all bread flour.

 

Sunflower Seed Bread with Pâte Fermentée

Makes: 3 Medium or 2 Large Loaves

Adapted from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman and The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart

Ingredients:

Soaker:

• 6.4 oz (1 3/8 cup) rye flakes
• 8 oz (1 cup) water

Pâte Fermentée:

• 3.2 oz (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
• 3.4 oz (3/4 cup) bread flour
• 4.2 oz (1/2 cup) water
• .1 oz (1/2 tsp) salt
• 1/8 tsp. instant dry yeast

Dough:

• 12.8 oz (2 7/8 cups)  all-purpose flour
• 12.8 oz (2 7/8 cups) bread flour
• 13.4 oz (1 5/8 cups) water
• .6 oz (1 T) salt
• .17 oz, instant dry yeast (1 1/2 tsp)
• 1 1/2 tsp. Diastatic Malt Power
• 6.4 oz ( 1 3/8 cups) toasted sunflower seeds 
• Soaker, all of the above (14.4 oz)
• Pâte Fermentée, all of the above (10.7 oz)

 

Directions:

1st Day: Making the Pâte Fermentée

Sprinkle the yeast over the water, add the flours and salt and stir until everything comes together and makes a coarse ball. Adjust the flour or water as necessary to ensure the dough is neither too sticky nor too stiff. 

Transfer the dough to a counter sprinkled with flour. Knead the dough until it is soft and pliable, tacky but not sticky. About 4 to 6 minutes by hand or 4 minutes using the stand mixer.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and roll it around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it ferment at room temperature for an hour or until it swells to 1 1/2 times its original size. Remove the dough from the bowl, knead it lightly to degas it, then return it to the bowl and recover with plastic wrap.

Place the bowl in the refrigerator overnight. It will keep in the refrigerator for 3 days, or you can freeze it in an airtight plastic bag for up to 3 months. I kept mine in the refrigerator until the next evening when I was ready to continue the process.

 

Making the Soaker

Make the soaker at least 4 hours before mixing the final dough so the grains have time to soak up the liquid and soften. Pour cold water over the rye flakes and stir to thoroughly incorporate.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. I used rye flakes for the soaker so I used a cold soaker. I placed the soaker in the refrigerator overnight along with the Pâte Fermentée.

You can also toast the sunflower seeds. I didn’t toast mine because they were already roasted, but toasting raw sunflower seeds will make them more fragrant.

 

2nd Day: Mixing the Dough

Remove the Pâte Fermentée from the refrigerator 1 hour before making the dough.

Cut it into about 10 small pieces with a pastry scraper. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter for an hour to take off the chill.

 

Add all of the ingredients, including the soaker and the sunflower seeds, but not the Pâte Fermentée, in the mixing bowl of your stand mixer.  Using a spiral mixer, mix on first speed for 3 minutes in order to incorporate the ingredients.  Add the Pâte Fermentée in chunks.

 

 

Adjust the hydration of the dough as necessary by adding additional flour or water. Turn the mixer to second speed and mix for an additional 3 to 4 minutes.  The dough will be somewhat loose, but should have noticeable dough strength and gluten development.  The desired dough temperature is 75 degrees F.

 

Bulk Fermentation

Let the dough ferment for 2 hours and fold the dough after 1 hour of bulk fermentation.

• To learn how to fold the dough, refer to the French Bread bloopers post.
• Or, use the Tartine Method of turning the dough in the bowl. I used the Tartine method for this dough.

 

Dividing and Shaping the Dough

Divide the dough into 1.5 pound pieces.  Shape each piece into a round.  Cover the balls with plastic and let them rest seams-side up on a lightly-floured counter.

 

Once the dough has relaxed sufficiently (about 10 to 20 minutes), shape it into tight round loaves. Dip the top side of each loaf into a dampened cloth, then into a sheet pan of raw sunflower seeds. I sprayed the loaves with a little bit of water and dipped the top side onto the counter covered with sesame seeds.

 

Place the loaves into floured bannetons or onto a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal or a baker’s couche, top side up, and cover with plastic.

 

Final Fermentation

The loaves need to proof approximately 1 to 1 1/2 hours.  At this point, it was late so I covered the loaves with plastic and a dish towel and placed them in the refrigerator to bulk ferment overnight.

 

3rd Day: Baking the Loaves

The next afternoon, I took the loaves out of the refrigerator and let them warm up for a couple of hours before baking.

 

The sunflower seeds could make the scoring a little bit difficult. So just use a few quick strokes with a straight razor blade or some snips with scissors.  I used a lame to score these loaves and it worked just fine.

 

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F, with a baking stone on the middle rack and a steam pan underneath.  Place the loaves on the hot baking stone using a baker’s peel or the back of a baking sheet. Fill the steam pan with hot water and close the door of the oven.  (I also sprayed the walls of the oven with a spray bottle filled with water about 3 times during the first few minutes.) Then, I reduced the oven temperature to 450 degrees F.  Let the loaves bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 425 degrees F. Bake for a total of about 40 minutes until the loaves are golden brown.

 

 

Let the loaves cool completely on a wire rack before slicing and serving. This bread tastes great toasted with cheese and served with homemade tomato soup.

 

This bread has been YeastSpotted. Please visit Wild Yeast to view all of the lovely breads in the roundup. Thanks to Frankie (Tartine Bread Experiment) for hosting this week’s roundup. 

 

Mellow Bakers was started by Paul at Yumarama. We’re baking breads from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman.

 

Happy Baking!

Cathy

Normandy Apple Bread with Einkorn Flour

It was beautiful and sunny this past weekend in Georgia.  The perfect weather for ripening sourdough and baking bread. I decided to take advantage of the weather to get some needed fresh air and bake this wonderful Normandy Apple Bread. 

This is another one of the breads the Mellow Bakers made during February. It includes dried apples and apple cider. This bread also utilizes a stiff levain that is built in phases. This gave me time to enjoy the weekend outdoors and still bake bread.

 

This bread also includes some whole wheat flour which I didn’t have at the moment so I substituted some freshly ground Einkorn flour that I had just milled for the Sprouted Einkorn Bread.

This is what Einkorn flour looks like.  It’s the flour on the top right of the photo. The rest of the flour is bread flour.

 

Normandy Apple Bread

Adapted from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman

Makes: 2 large loaves

Ingredients:

Stiff-Levain Build:

• 1 3/8 cups (5.8 oz) bread flour
• 1/2 cup ( 3.5.oz) water
• 2 T + 1 tsp (1.2 oz) mature culture (stiff)

Final Dough:

• 5 1/4 cups (1 lb 7 oz) bread flour
• 1 cup Einkorn flour (or 3/4 cup (3.2 oz) whole wheat flour)
• 1 cup (7 oz) water
• 1 1/4 cups (10.9 oz) apple cider
• 1 T (.6 oz) salt
• 1 tsp (.1 oz) instant dry yeast
• Levain (I used all of the levain rather than reserving 2 T + 1 tsp. So I increased the Einkorn flour from 3/4 to 1 cup)
• 1 1/2 cups dried apples

 

Directions:

Drying the Applies:

A couple of days before you plan to make the bread, dry the apples in the oven. Or, if you have dried apples, you can use them. I took about 3 or 4 fresh apples and peeled and sliced them.

Then I baked the apples at 250 degrees F. until they felt leathery. Drying the apples takes a couple of hours, but it was worth it.  It intensifies the flavor and prevents them from releasing excess moisture into the dough.

 

Stiff Levain:

The day before you plan to make this bread, make sure your starter has been fed. I fed mine Saturday morning and let it ripen a few hours while I enjoyed the sunshine outside.  I had to adjust the hydration of my starter to make it stiff for this recipe.  I did that by adding 1/2 cup of water and 1 cup of bread flour to the starter.

Saturday night, I made the final build and let it ripen on the counter until the next morning, about 12 hours.  It only takes a few minutes to prepare the stiff levain so my boyfriend didn’t mind taking a few minutes to watch me do this part.

Mixing the Dough:

This is what the stiff levain looked like after 12 hours.

The next morning, add all of the ingredients to the mixing bowl, including the apple cider, but not the dried apples.  Using a spiral mixer, mix the ingredients and adjust the hydration as necessary. 

As I mentioned, I used all of the levain so I added more Einkorn flour to compensate.  The dough should be medium consistency.  Mix until you achieve a moderate gluten development.

Add the dried apples and mix on first speed just until they are evenly incorporated.  It was a little bit tricky getting all of the apples mixed in, but it finally worked. I used my hands to make sure the apples were fully incorporated.

Bulk ferment the dough for 2 hours.  Fold the dough after 1 hour. 

Divide the dough into 1.5-pound pieces; shape round or oblong.  Since I used all of the levain and additional flour, my dough weighed more than 3 pounds.  I ended up with a 1.5-pound piece and a 2+ pound piece. So I shaped them and put them in 8.5” and 10.5” oval banneton baskets and let them rise for 1 1/2 hours.

 

After the final rise, I preheated the oven to 450 degrees F. with a baking stone on the middle shelf and a steam pan on the bottom shelf.  I transferred the loaves to parchment paper and scored them down the middle.

I placed the loaves (and parchment paper) on the baking stone and spritzed the walls with water (using a spray bottle) three times during the first few minutes of baking.  I baked the loaves at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes; then lowered the oven temperature to 425 to avoid excess darkening from the sugars in the apples and cider.

After the loaves finish baking, remove them to a wire rack to cool.

I actually left this bread alone all night.  I covered it, but I didn’t slice it until today. It was overcast today so this bread was a nice treat.

I’m still trying to place my finger (or taste buds rather) on the flavor of the Einkorn flour.  It’s hard to tell in this bread.  The flavors of the dried apples and apple cider really shine through.  All I know is that this bread is really good, especially warm with butter.

 

Thanks for joining me in the Bread Experience bread-baking blog.  Please join me again soon.

Happy Baking!
Cathy

Be sure to check out what the other Mellow Bakers have been baking.

The Mellow Bakers group was started by Paul at Yumarama. We’re baking breads from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman.

French Bread Bloopers: Mellow Bakers

One of the breads randomly chosen for the Mellow Bakers group this month is French Bread. This particular French Bread is made using the straight dough method, meaning it doesn't utilize a preferment.  I happen to prefer poolish baguettes so I almost didn't make this one.  However, some of the other bakers seemed to have good results with this bread so I thought I should give it a try. 

I was going to give it my best shot even though I wasn't sure if I would like it.  Everything seemed to be going okay until I disregarded one of the most fundamental rules of baking bread: FOCUS.  I was so distracted that I should not have been baking bread, but alas, I did it anyway and here is the result.  I'm not sure if you can tell by the photo below, but the bread is a little bit crispy burnt on the bottom.

 

Here's what happened...



I started out ready to conquer this bread.  I mixed the dough and let it ferment for 2 1/2 hours.

After the first 50 minutes, I did the stretch and fold technique.  We didn't develop the gluten very much during the mixing phase so folding the dough helps develop the gluten.

Folding the Dough 

First you turn the dough out onto a heavily floured surface.  The flour won't be incorporated into the dough so don't skimp on this part because the dough will stick to the surface and your fingers.

Then, you take one side and lift it up and bring it over the middle of the dough. 

With spread fingers, use both hands to pat down the dough and degas it.  Obviously, I couldn't use both hands and still take a photo so you only see one hand here.

Next, take about one-third of the dough from the right side and fold it in toward the center, overlapping the first fold. 

Press it to degas.

After you fold the right-hand third of the dough into the center, reach over to the far side of the dough, bring about one-third toward you and fold this portion.

Brush off the excess flour. Finish by taking the dough closest to you and folding that portion away from you and into the center. 

Pick up the dough in a mass,

and replace it in the bowl.

Let the dough rise for another 50 minutes. Then do the fold and stretch process again.  Then let it rest for another 20 minutes and proceed to the shaping step.

Shaping the Loaves

Divide the dough into two rounds.  Hammelman's formula is enough for 4 baguettes, but I halved the recipe because I didn't need that much bread.  So I divided the dough in half and shaped each piece into a round.  Then I let each round sit for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Then I shaped them into baguettes using the following technique. Some of the photos are sort of fuzzy because it's hard to take photos and shape a baguette at the same time, but you'll get the gist.

Shaping the Baguettes

Lightly flour a work surface and place the preshaped dough with the good side down.  Gentle flatten the dough into an oblong shape of even thickness.

Fold one-third of the dough piece toward you so that it rests on itself, and gently pat out the air.

Turn the dough piece around 180 degrees, and again fold one-third of the dough toward you.  Gently pat out the air again. 

The dough should now be rectangular, and of even thickness.

Beginning at the right side of the dough piece, begin the folding and pressing procedure.  The left thumb rests at the top of the dough with the fingers of the left hand holding the loaf from behind.

The fingers fold a flap of dough over, covering the thumb, and the heel of the right hand presses the folded flap of dough to seal it.  This folding and pressing is repeated down the entire length of the dough.

The seam should be tight, and there should be a lip of dough along the bottom length.  Turn the dough around 180 degrees and repeat the folding and pressing process, this time bringing the seam right to the work surface. 

Turn the dough over so that the seam is directly on the bottom.

Place your right hand in the center of the dough, contouring your hand so that your fingertips and the heel of your hand are on the work surface, and the palm of your hand is in contact with the dough.

Roll the dough back and forth 3 or 4 times and then begin to elongate the dough.  Once the dough has reach the desired length, place it in the couche to rise.

Cover the loaves with plastic wrap

And a cloth so that air currents don't crust the surface.  I put the flour container on one side and the sugar container on the other side to help the loaves keep their shape while they were rising in the couche.

Then I let the dough ferment for about an hour and a half.

I was actually feeling pretty proud of the loaves up to this point.


Then...


I made my first mistake.  I was talking to my sister on the phone and the final proofing time was up.  So I transferred the loaves from the baker's couche to the perforated pan.

Ooops! I forgot to score the loaves. Darn. I didn't want to move them again so I left them in the pan to score them there.

The conversation with my sister was still going on and there didn't seem to be any end in sight and I was getting anxious.  I'm sure that never happens to you with your sister.  Since I couldn't seem to get off the phone, I decided to score the bread while I was talking on my iPhone.  Big mistake... You can't score bread with one hand.  Oh well!  So the scoring didn't turn out quite so good.

I figured the bread would be okay, the scoring just wouldn't look so pretty.  So I put the loaves in the preheated oven and let them bake for awhile.

By this time, I was off the phone and everything was going fine.  The loaves had about 10 minutes more to bake so I decided to go feed Charlie (the dog) real quick.  I went outside and fed him and then I got sidetracked again.  My plants in the straw bale garden were calling to me.  They needed watering so I watered them, and then I picked some Roma tomatoes.  About 20 minutes later, I came back in the house and thought, Hmmm...what's that smell.  Oh no!  The bread.  How I could forget in the span of 5 minutes that I had bread baking is beyond me but it happened.

By the time I rescued the loaves, they were burned on the bottom and pretty crispy.

The poor loaves looked pretty pitiful, but all was not lost.  I sliced the bread and cut off the burned part and served it toasted with Brushchetta. It was actually pretty good.

The next bread in the July series is Bialys and it calls for white bread crumbs so I know what I'm doing with the rest of this bread.  See, and you thought all was lost.


The moral of this story is that you should always focus when you're baking bread, but even if you mess up, you can still salvage it and even have a little bit of fun.  Besides, you can always give the crumbs to the birds.  They are always happy to sample my blunders.  Charlie is usually pretty good about eating my bread as well.


Thanks for joining me and my bread bloopers today in the Bread Experience bread-baking blog.  I hope you’ll join me again soon.

Be sure to check out what all the other bakers have been up to in the Mellow Bakers group.


Happy Baking!
Cathy


The Mellow Bakers group was started by Paul at Yumarama. We’re baking breads from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman.


You might enjoy some of the other breads that we've featured in the Bread Baking Blog.