RYE & SEMOLINA SEEDY BREAD

There’s something about the smell of freshly baked bread, that just makes you feel at home. Even if you have never baked bread before, or didn’t grow up with freshly baked bread at home. It has a sort of magic to it. It’s like all of a sudden Mary Poppins moves in and adopts you. When you cut that first slice of warm bread, and put some butter on it that instantly melts away, it's like flying away with her umbrella.

Fresh out of the oven Rye and Semolina Seedy bread

We can all agree, it’s pretty hard to get that feeling as an adult. So this is amazing.

I know to most of you, making bread seems like a daunting task. It’s actually not. You’re only mixing flour, water, salt and yeast together, kneading it, and then letting the awesome little ‘yeasty bacterias’ do the rest for you, before you bake it in the oven. What I’m actually saying is: be a team player and let nature do it’s job. Be patient. Let your dough rise in it’s own time - a tip for seeing when it’s done rising is to poke the dough lightly with your finger, if the dent remains in the dough it’s ready, if it jumps back leave it for another while.

I got the semolina flour as a present straight from Italy (which is why I started making this bread), and the rye flour freshly milled to do the fancy Semolina justice.

This recipe uses Rye flour, which behaves differently to other flours and takes longer to rise, but it’s super nutritious and tasty. Rye flour might be a bit hard to come by (I found mine at the Olive Branch Deli here in Cape Town), so just keep an eye out for a place that would potentially stock it. The semolina is easier to find, and is there to speed up the process, and give you a fluffier inside.

Just add the lid on top, and you've got yourself a dutch oven. Woohoo!

This recipe also uses a makeshift ‘dutch oven’. It’s the secret to getting that wonderful looking crust. I don’t have a dutch oven, so I just use an oven dish with a lid. It works like a bomb. If you have one, great!

I watched this Tasty video to understand how the whole dutch oven thing works. So, go check it out if you want to feel more prepared.

The dutch oven is the secret to getting this amazing crust. It took me way too long to figure this out. At least, now you don't have to.

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Recipe

Ingredients

Dough:

The below ingredients make one small bread.

If you want a larger sized bread (like in the picture), double it up.

1 cup lukewarm water

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp Instant Yeast

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup Semolina flour

1 1/2 cup Rye flour

Topping:

Mix of seeds to sprinkle on top, I used linseed, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.

1 egg (makes the seeds stick to the dough)

Instructions:

1. In a cup, mix together the lukewarm water, yeast and honey. Let that sit until the yeast forms a foamy layer at the top. It takes about 5 - 10 min or so.

2. In a large bowl, measure out your rye and semolina flour and salt (you can do this while you wait for the yeast to activate)Add the yeast to the flour.

3. With your hands, work the mixture until it comes together. I like to just get a very loose dough mixture at this point, more just to get all the watery yeast mixture between all the flour.

4. Transfer the loose dough mixture to a lightly dusted surface, and start shaping/bringing together the dough with your hands.

5. And now - KNEAD BITCH! Your granny did this, so you can too. This is a really important step to make sure that your yeast and all the ingredients is thoroughly worked through. What you’re basically doing is activating gluten that will make this lump of ingredients rise up into a fluffy cloud. So, get your back in there for a good 10 minutes or more. A smooth tacky ball tacky ball will start forming. If this ball feels sticky, dust some more flour over it, if it’s too dry add some more water (although I’ve never needed to do that).

6. Shape the dough into a nice ball, and place it into the large bowl. The bowl should still have some flour leftover on the sides, but make sure big sticky clumps aren’t stuck to the sides. You just want a nice container for your dough ball to rise without it sticking to the sides.

7. Cover with a warm cloth and leave it to rise for 60 - 90 minutes*. This is the part where you let nature take over. So walk away, go watch a movie, go for lunch, whatever, you’re relieved of your duties for now.

8. When you come back, check in on nature’s work by poking the dough with your finger. If the dent stays in the dough- it’s ready, if it jumps back - leave it for another while.

9. Preheat your oven at 230°C with your oven proof pot/dutch oven in it for 40 minutes. *you can start this step while you’re still waiting for your dough to rise.

10. Remove the hot pot from the oven, and transfer the dough ball into it.

11. Give the dough ball a egg wash before you sprinkle your seed mixture on top.

12. Bake in the oven at 200°C for 40 minutes with the lid closed.

13. After 40 minutes remove the lid, and bake uncovered for another 10 minutes. The timings here aren’t an exact science either. Do an eye test and see if after 10 minutes it’s the desired result, if not, bake for longer. You want to see a nice golden hard crust on the outside.

14. Once you’re done baking, remove it from the oven and transfer your bread onto a cooling rack for a while before you slice it open.

First slice of the freshly baked bread topped with some butter and mature cheddar slices, and of course red wine. Amazing!