4 seed bread

hee hee hee. such a rich, heavy and nutritous loaf!

you have to give credit to the guy (or gal) who thought of combining seeds/nuts into bread. the added dimensionality, bite and subtle taste transforms the basic bread into one hell of a nutritious meal!

there are so many variations you could do, depending on what's easily available. first time i'm trying this and i'm already thinking of other combinations. this is another "keeper" and i'm sure we'll be baking this from time to time!

• 4 cups of flour (since i like rye so much, i used 2 cups of rye + 2 cups of white)
• 1 teaspoon yeast
• 1-2 teaspoon honey
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ~1.5 cups water
• 1-1.5 cups of seeds (your choice here)

i had some leftover poppy and flax seeds. so went to the store and, to keep the theme consistent, bought some sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. so there are 4 types of seeds here!

combine them anyway you like. i had the poppy seeds soaked in warm water for 10 minutes first before adding to the other seeds.

there are 2 ways to mix the seeds into the dough. you could mix all up first, then pour in the yeast + water mixture. or you could add the seeds to a rather active dough which has grown considerably for an hour.

i prefer the latter as i like to knead the dough a little first. you know, make sure all the flour/yeast/salt is pretty well mixed up first. also, to let the yeast grow considerably first.

then spread out the dough (but not flatten), pour the seeds mixture and knead like crazy.

boy, this will be one wet messy dough. it won't be like kneading anymore but more like just stretching the dough. [if you are unsure whether your dough is too dry or too wet, err on the side of wet.] the seeds (especially the smaller poppy and flax) will be everywhere, sticking to your fingers as well. boy, they do have a knack of hiding in the space between your fingers.

but don't worry too much about this. let it be a wet messy mixture. after mixing them up for a few minutes, leave it aside and let the yeast work its magic.

an hour later, you'll find the dough has grown more and has "taken in" the seeds. now it'll be really easy to stretch or do whatever you want with the dough. the seeds won't fall out anymore. they behave!

such a heavy dough, it won't rise much, so forget about looking for big holes in your bread. in fact, it rises pretty slowly...

[i cheated here. i had to leave early so i had the oven heated up to 60 c, then switched off, and placed the dough inside. boy, in 20 minutes, it grew a lot!]

placed at the middle rack of the oven and had it baked 180 c (about 350 f) for 25 minutes.

it's a beautiful loaf and tastes fantastic! you could chew and savour every bite and taste.

i better stop here. got to take another bite!

poppy seed + mixed fruit

i read about the polish poppy seed roll in linda collister's "bread - from ciabatta to rye" and got interested.

the polish version uses some rum (2 tablespoons)
but since i didn't have any at home, i went without it.

i wanted to bake using just plain wheat flour but stupid me ran out of flour so had to sub with wholemeal. thus the heavy loaf.

i used 3 cups of wholemeal + 1 cup of wheat but you could use 4 cups of wheat. no problem there.

as for the fillings, this depends on how much you like. i used slightly more than half cup of mix dried fruit and about a quarter cup of poppy seeds.

the poppy seeds have to be soaked in warm water for a few minutes, then drained out.

as the mixed fruits is already sweetened, i didn't add any sweeter. i added some olive oil though (2 teaspoons).

• 4 cups of wheat flour (i ran out of flour so went 1 cup of wheat + 3 cups of wholemeal)
• 1/2-1 cup of mixed dried fruit
• 1/4-1/2 cup of poppy seeds. soaked in warm water then sieved.
• as again, 1 teaspoon of yeast, 1 teaspoon of honey
• and finally 1 teaspoon of salt

follow the "basic bread recipe", but after the initial rise (~2 hours), take out the dough and stretch/spread out to as big a piece as you could but still maintaining thickness of around 1cm. if spread too thin, it won't be strong enough to hold all the fillings. it'll break when you roll it up. a mess with all the poppy seeds all over the place!

the fillings consist of the poppy seeds, mixed dried fruit and optionally some honey. as my dried fruit mix already has castor sugar, i didn't bother to sweeten it. add some olive oil if you wish. the original polish recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of rum as well.

spread the filling evenly over the spread out dough to almost the edges. then roll up the dough from one side like a swiss roll.

let it sit and rise again for 1-2 hours. bake and enjoy!

PS :  yes, poppy seeds contain trace amount of opiate, from which some quantity is needed to produce drugs like morphine/heroine. however, to have any such "high" effect, you need to consume at least more than 300 grams. the above recipe uses less than 100g in the whole loaf. so you need to bake 3 times as much and consume ALL within a day! i bet you'll be feeling something else rather than a "high"!

poppy seeds are pretty nutritious. described as "a good source of thiamin, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc and copper.