golden hamster bread - a bread based on wheat sourdough full of healthy seeds

golden hamster packed with healthy seeds fresh out of the oven

I found this bread over here, Marla posted this recipe on the forum and I got to be thankful for this great recipe that creates sumptuous, moist artisan bread that is full of great flavors and healthy seeds. This is just awesome bread and a healthy, balanced way to start your morning in a delicious way. The name says it all. It's called Golden Hamster, most likely because a hamster likes to carry seeds in his mouth around. So, as the cheeks of the hamster, this bread is fully packed of tasty and healthy seeds.
As a coincidence to when I decided to follow Marla’s advise and bake this artisanal bread, this month, Cindy's blog is organizing the bread baking day featuring breads with seeds & flakes, so what is better than to bake this bread and participate in this blog event? So here goes the recipe for the great tasting  organic bread.


Sourdough:

• 125 g wheat flour (I did use whole wheat flour)
• 110 g water
• 12 g rye sourdough starter

Let it rest for approx. 16 hours

sourdough after fermentation for about 16 hours

scald

• 100 g coarse ground wheat seeds. In order to make sure that all the wheat seeds are able to soak up water so that the wheat seeds will be easy and soft to bite inside the bread. For this, you have to make sure that the seed all are broken so that the water can immerse inside the core of the seed. For this you grind the seeds coarse. Don't grind them too long not to turn them into flour. I normally put the dried wheat seeds in my coffee grinder and grind it for a short while.
• 100 g cooking water
• 6 g salt

Let the scald rest for 12 hours

Scale piece soaking up the hot water

Swollen piece

• 50 g shredded wheat
• 50 g Oat flakes
• 100 g pumpkin seeds
• 50 g black sesame seeds
• 6 g salt
• 220 g water

Let it rest for 3 hours at least

Seeds that go into the swollen piece

Bread dough

• Sourdough, scald and swollen piece
• 130 g (whole wheat flour)
• 50 g rye flour
• 10 g honey
• 7 g fresh yeast (ca. 1 g dried yeast)

Mix everything well together; knead the dough for five - eight minutes. Now let the dough rest for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes we now form the bread. If you are not sure how to form / shape bread, please follow my link on "bread baking basics + know how". Attention, the dough is very wet and not easy to form, if it’s too wet, you can add a bit of flour. Also add a lot of flour on the table before forming the bread. Now, this is the kind of bread that will be baked in a baking form. So I will form the bread not round but in a lengthy shape so it will fit in the form. The form we butter out well first, if you want, you can add some sesame seeds on the buttered form before resting the bread dough in it. After forming the bread this way, we carefully lay it with the closure face down into the bread form.
Once the dough is added, I also wet the top of the dough (which means the bottom of the bread) so it won't get a hard crust on top. Let the bread ferment another 60 minutes.

bread dough just went into the baking form

Actually, after 45 minutes I spray some more water on top of the bread and sprinkle some oat flakes on top of it to make is look tastier.

Dough in the baking forms with the oatflakes on top

Once the breads have been fermented, (I do the thumb testing to see how fermented the bread is inside, I will write more about this technique here soon), I wet the top of the bread one more time I pop it in the preheated oven. The oven should be pre heated on 250°C. Now pour a cup of hot water in the oven (if you do not have this inbuilt steaming program in your oven at home), pop the bread in the oven and also place a cup of water on the floor of the oven to give some additional steam later on. Quickly close the door so the hot steam will be caught within the oven. Having all that steam in the oven is, like mentioned many times before, extremely important for a scrumptious crust and a great consistency of the bread.

Bake the breads for 10 minutes like this, then open up the door, let the steam out, lower the heat on 190 - 200°C and continue to bake the bread for another 45 minutes. Then take the bread out of the form and finish baking the bread another 5 minutes so that the crust on the bottom of the bread also gets some color.
Consumption tips: This is a wheat sourdough homemade bread, I do enjoy it warm and fresh from the oven with a flock of butter melted on top, simply, easy, delicious…

I want to contribute this bread to the following blog events:
1.) My bread on yeast spotting page - again! Happy and honored to participate there, again
2.) Proudly present: my bread on Cindy's blog's bread making day #58