Malt grain and multi seed tin sandwich loaf

 

There are two versions of this recipe: one if you can get hold of malted wheat flakes (I use those from Bakery Bits) or a second if you can’t get malt flakes but can find Hovis flour (I’ve purchased this from TESCO and Waitrose).

Hovis is a patented product and registered trademark as they invented the method to prepare this flour. I love the name – it’s a concatenated version of Hominis Vis, Latin for the ‘strength of man’ and the name came about from a national competition. I can’t claim to be very knowledgeable or clever about this – I think I may have heard it on QI or something similar!? So, no brains but can bake a loaf and watch panel shows 😉

I’ve added extra sugars as I did find this amount of seed retarded the loaf a little (though I don’t supposed anyone else other than yourself will notice!) for the yeast to feed on, thus increasing its vigour and improving aeration.

Fits in a typical loaf/sandwich pan

Can also be hand shaped and left to raise

Equipment

• Large bowl
• Scraper
• Sandwich tin (a large bread version – not for sponge cakes)
• Linen tea towel, cling film or clean plastic bag
• baking tray

Ingredients for recipe version one: with separate malt grains

• Strong white bread flour – 600g
• Dried, fast acting yeast – 10g
• Fine sea salt – 7g
• Granulated sugar – 10g
• Unsalted butter – 1 tablespoon
• Water (just tepid) – 350ml
• Malt flakes – 50g
• Additional seeds: 20g each of dark linseeds, linseeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds (100g seeds in total)

Ingredients for recipe version two: with Hovis flour

• Strong white bread flour – 300g
• Hovis bread flour – 300g
• Dried, fast acting yeast – 10g
• Fine sea salt – 7g
• Granulated sugar – 10g
• Unsalted butter – 1 tablespoon
• Water (just tepid) – 350ml
• Additional seeds: 20g each of dark linseeds, linseeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds (100g seeds in total)

Additional ingredients – both recipes

• A little extra flour for dusting
• A little oil for the tin
• Extra seeds for the top of the loaf (optional)
• Boil a kettle up with a little water

Method – for either recipe version

1. Mix all the ingredients except the seeds together in a large bowl – I prefer to use a table knife for this process, though you may like to use fingers, a flexible dough scraper or a dough hook on your machine. It will form a very rough-looking sticky mess. This is fine
2. Leave for ten minutes
3. Tip out on to a clean surface and use your dough scraper to get all of the residue out. Have your flour and scraper handy
4. Knead the dough until the surface becomes silky and smooth – this will be about 10 – 12 minutes
5. If – and only if – the dough is far to sticky to work with, dust a little flour on to the table. Otherwise you should persevere with kneading the dough without adding any more flour (this actually will change the ratio of flour to liquid and other ingredients so it’s best not to dust if you can). It should eventually start to come together without the flour and you can use your scraper from time to time to ensure all the dough is getting kneaded by scraping along the surface
6. When the dough starts to come together, add in the seeds and knead until they are distributed.
7. Dust the bowl with flour to prevent it sticking (if you have not managed to take the dough out without leaving a lot behind, you may want to use a clean bowl)
8. Roll the dough up into a dome and place in the floured bowl
9. Cover the bowl either with the tea towel/cloth or cling film (or if you have one a cheap shower cap is ace for this) or a plastic bag
10. Leave to rise somewhere that isn’t cold until the dough looks like it’s about twice the height it was before. This could be anywhere from 50 minutes to three hours depending on how cold a space you have)
11. Lightly oil the loaf tin
12. Flour your baking stone or thick baking tray and put it in the bottom of your oven
13. Lightly flour the counter you’re working on and the baking tray or peel
14. Tip out the risen dough gently into the middle of the flour on the counter and press down gently with your finger tips all over to knock back the dough. Don’t be too vigorous – a lot of issues with bread are when the knocking back is too fierce
15. Fold the dough over on itself from one side then the other and then fold the ends in
16. Pinch the loose edges together to get them to ‘stick’
17. Shape into a fat, rounded oblong that will fill up most of the bottom of the tin
18. Cover again
19. Leave for the second proof – roughly an hour depending on the temperature. It will be ready when and it springs back into shape if you press it gently with the pad of a finger
20. Just before your loaf looks ready, start to heat your oven to 220C fan / 230C conventional – and put the baking tray in the bottom of the oven
21. Boil the kettle
22. When the bread and the oven are both ready (be lead by your dough! Don’t just put it in because your oven has reached temperature) you can lightly water the top of the loaf and sprinkle on a few seeds if you want or you could make a long slash down the loaf for a split tin effect
23. Transfer the loaf to the oven
24. Pour some water out of the kettle into the tray at the bottom of the oven
25. Shut the door and set the timer for 10 minutes
26. After 10 minutes, turn the temperature down to 180C fan/190C conventional and bake for another 25 minutes
27. The bread should be nicely dark (though not burnt)
28. Tip out as soon as you can
29. Test the loaf’s ‘doneness’ by tapping the bottom of it – it should sound hollow
30. If it’s not done yet or it isn’t as brown as you’d like put it back in the oven (without the tin) for another 5 – 10 minutes
31. Leave to cool on a wire rack or something else that will allow airflow to the bottom of the loaf or the evaporated moisture that comes off a new loaf will gather and cause a soggy bottom (yes, this problem isn’t just confined to pastry!)

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