Whole Wheat Sunflower Seed Bread

Bread baking is like an addiction. If I haven’t baked one for a long time, a kind of restlessness creeps in. Mixing, kneading and punching seems to wring out all anxieties and stress, it is relieving and healing and a well risen loaf is the ultimate exhilaration.

I added sunflower seeds to my regular whole wheat bread dough. 

The loaf that came out of the oven was just amazing with beautiful flavor of honey and the sunflower seeds adding the lovely crunch.

It is just getting cold, colder and coldest here. With fog looming most of the time, days are quite dull. However nature has its own ways of filling up colours and thus dissipating dullness. 

There are profuse blooms everywhere….

This is how I made Whole Wheat Sunflower Seed Bread

Whole Wheat Sunflower Seed Bread

Ingredients

1 ½ cup whole wheat flour

1 ½ cup all purpose flour

¼ cup raw sunflower seeds

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons instant dried yeast

1 ½ teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cup warm water

Method

Mix honey in 1 cup warm water. Stir in yeast and cover for 15 minutes.

Whisk together whole wheat flour, all purpose flour and salt in a kneading plate.

Add olive oil and mix well with hands.

Make a well in the center and add yeast mixture. Knead with hands. Keep adding the remaining 1/3 cup warm water till smooth and elastic dough if formed. It will take about 6 to 8 minutes.

Oil a bowl and place the dough in it. Turn the dough so that it is well oiled. Cover and keep in a dry warm place for 1 ½ hours or till it doubles in size.

Grease one 8 inch x 3 ½ inch loaf pan.

Transfer the dough into the kneading plate. Stretch with the heels of your palm. Sprinkle sunflower seeds. Fold the dough sprinkle remaining seeds ensuring that the seeds are uniformly distributed in the dough.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle not bigger than the width of the pan you are using. Roll the dough towards you, tightly. Pinch seams to seal. Place the roll in the greased loaf tin with the seam side down. Cover and keep it to rise for 1 ½ hours in a warm place.

Bake in the preheated oven at 190 degrees C for 25 to 30 minutes or till the top turns brown and the bottom of the pan sounds empty when tapped. If the loaf is browning too quickly, tent the loaf loosely with a foil.

Remove from the loaf tin after 10 minutes. Cool in the rack.

Slice next day.

Submitted for Yeastspotting