It’s not often I bake the same loaf of bread twice, but this is one that I find myself coming back to. The seeds give a little crunch while the oats provide a silkiness. This is a great all purpose bread that I use for toast, breakfast sandwiches, cheesy garlic bread or simply dipped into olive oil.

Schedule: I based this loaf off of my hybrid schedule.

Since this uses a big portion of natural yeast to ferment, I created a levain with my sourdough starter that was last fed 24 hours prior. This levain provides enough for 3 loaves of bread, plus a little extra to keep your starter going. The small amount of bakers yeast helps give a little boost to the rising of the bread.

30 minutes before mixing the levain, bakers yeast, salt and other ingredients into the dough, I performed an autolyse by mixing the water and flour together.

Ingredients:

Levain

Started at 7:30am with the following ingredients. Mix everything together and loosely cover and let it ferment for about 8 hours.

• 50g unfed sourdough starter (last feeding was 24 hours prior)
• 250g filtered water @ 85-90’F
• 200g Bob’s Red Mill bread flour
• 50g King Arthur whole wheat flour

Dough

• 410g Bob’s Red Mill bread flour
• 328g filtered water @ 90-95’F
• 180g levain
• 11g sea salt
• 1/4 tsp bakers yeast
• 25g sunflower seeds
• 25g pepitas (green pumpkin seeds)
• 25g quick oats

Method:

After mixing the dough, I performed 4 stretch and folds within the first 2 hours. The dough bulk fermented at room temperature for about 5 hours.

Before proofing, I added some sesame seeds, poppy seeds and pepitas to the banneton and then put the loaf on top to proof. Doing this helps the topping adhere to the loaf so it doesn’t just fall off. I proofed the dough overnight in the refrigerator.

I baked the loaf in a preheated dutch oven at 450’F for 38 minutes covered, then removed the lid of the dutch oven and baked for an additional 14 minutes.

Result:

This is probably one of the best rises I’ve had out of a bread. Timings and temperatures must have been right on which is a nice feeling. I didn’t score the loaf but instead relied on the natural venting to open the bread, which it did well. There were some really nice blisters that formed on the crust due to the long cold proofing.

When eating it, you get the distinctive flavor from the seeds and a subtle sourness from the long cold proofing. The oats help give the crumb a really nice silky / pillowy mouthfeel.

My Baking Notes

• Ambient temperature: 74’F
• Started autolyse @ 3:00pm
• Water temp: 92’F
• Dough was 86’F at autolyse
• Mixed @ 3:35pm
• Dough was 77.5’F after mixing
• 4 stretch and folds in first 2 hours
• Started proof @ 8:45pm
• Preheated oven @ 6:05am the next morning
• Into oven @ 6:55am