This is a recipe for a sunflower seed rye bread. It is an experiment in several ways. First of all, the recipe has never been baked before. I have not used this amount of sunflower seeds before. And lastly, I’m trying out a new exciting product, that I have never used before. It’s called Agrain® and is an organic residue from beer brewing. In this recipe I’m using 100 grams of the malt residues from Stout brewing. It is supposed to give the bread a dark chocolate-like aroma.
Ingredients
This recipe gives enough for 2 x 1.5 L bread pans.
- 400 grams of rye flour
- 100 grams of Agrain ® Stout
- 8 dl of water
- 330 grams of sunflower seeds
- 60 grams sesame seeds
- 100 grams of rye seeds
- 3 dl of active sourdough
- 1 table spoon of salt
- 1 table spoon of sugar
As an alternative to the Agrain ® Stout you can use 500 grams of rye flour and 2 table spoons of dark malt flour.
How to
Day 1:
Preparation: 20 min | Raising: 12 hours & 3 hours | Baking: 1 hours and 30 min at 180°C
Take the sourdough from the fridge and mix in a little water and rye flour. After an hour it should be active and ready. This can be tested by dropping a spoon full into a glass of water. If it floats, it is ready and if it sinks mix in a little more flour and water and wait half an hour. Half of the rye flour, salt, sugar, rye seeds, and 7 dl of water is mixed in a big bowl. Sunflower seeds and sesame seeds are lightly roasted in a dry frying pan before they are added to the dough. Lastly, the sourdough is added. The dough is left to raise for the night on the table.
Day 2:
Mix in the latter half of the rye flour and the remaining 1 dl of water. The dough should now be somewhat in between fluid and solid, so if you take out some the rest stay put (see the picture below). Fill the dough into two 1.5 L greased bread pans to about 2/3 from the top. The last third of of empty space will fill-up as the two breads are left for raising in the pans for another 3 hours at the kitchen table. Heat up the oven to 180°C. Pinch wholes in through the dough from top to bottom with a knitting needle or anything similar. This is to secure that steam from the center of the bread can escape. Bake them for approximately 2 hours. The aim is to reach a core temperature of 98°C. If you want to be sure, you can check with a cooking thermometer. After baking, take the breads out of the pans and place on an ovengrate to cool down. They are best the day after. Enjoy your homebaked rye bread!
Conclusions on the experiment
The sunflower rye bread is really delicious! The combination of the dark colour from the Agrain ® and the white sunflower seeds gives some beautiful cuts, when you slice it.
