Whole-wheat multigrain bread

A wonderful whole-wheat bread packed with plenty of seeds and grains and sweetened with honey. Made with a rye sourdough starter, which I hope is already maturing in your pantry ;). Thanks to the small addition of yeast, this whole-wheat multigrain bread is relatively quick to prepare and the fermentation time is not particularly long. It is important, however, to prepare the preferment the day before. I highly recommend it!

Makes 2 loaves.

Ingredients for the preferment:

• 110 g strong white bread flour
• 140 g water
• 20 g active rye sourdough starter

Mix all the ingredients together, cover with cling film and leave at room temperature for 12–16 hours.

Ingredients for the soaker:

• 160 g mixed grains and seeds: sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, linseeds, cracked rye, millet, cornmeal, barley, etc.
• 200 g water

Cover the grains and seeds with the water, mix thoroughly, cover with cling film and leave at room temperature for 12–16 hours. If using very hard grains, such as cracked rye, millet, barley or coarse cornmeal, cover them with boiling water instead.

Ingredients for the final dough:

• 340 g strong white bread flour
• 450 g wholemeal flour
• 350 g water
• 20 g salt
• 5 g dried yeast or 10 g fresh yeast
• 30 g honey
• all the soaked grains and seeds from the recipe above
• all the preferment from the recipe above

Place all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and knead with the dough hook for approximately 10 minutes, until combined. Check the consistency of the dough while kneading and, if necessary, add more water (I added a few extra tablespoons) so that the dough is not too stiff. Cover the dough and leave in a warm place to rise for 2 hours, folding the dough once halfway through this time.

Divide the risen dough into 2 equal portions and shape into oval or round loaves. Place them seam-side up in well-floured proving baskets (using a 50:50 mixture of potato starch and plain flour). Cover the loaves (for example, place them in a large plastic bag and tie it securely so that they do not dry out) and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

Bake the whole-wheat multigrain bread in a preheated cast-iron Dutch oven or on a baking stone at 240°C for 40–45 minutes, with steam. Reduce the temperature if the bread is browning too quickly. If baking in a cast-iron Dutch oven, bake it for half the time with the lid on and half with the lid off.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Recipe source – Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman.