Wholemeal bread is very difficult to find in commerce, even if the name “wholemeal bread” appears, if you look more closely at the ingredients, you will notice that most of the time, wholemeal bread contains an overwhelming percentage of white flour. White flour is so intensively processed that its nutritional properties are almost non-existent. Therefore, it only helps to make you fat :).
I have to confess that before I managed to make wholemeal loaves there were many failed attempts, most of the time you could use my wholemeal loaves as stones and that’s it. Slowly, slowly, and learning something from each failed experience, I managed to make wholemeal bread.
For 12-13 loaves of bread, I used the following ingredients: about 500 grams of whole wheat flour (I used organic flour, I found it at Real), 1 bag of dry yeast, 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, warm water includes (I put about 1 and a half cups) and salt to taste (I used about 1 tablespoon).
To give the loaves a nice appearance, I also prepared a mix of seeds and cereals consisting of: 1 tablespoon of flax seeds (from the ceiling), 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds, 1 tablespoon of shelled sunflower seeds and 1 tablespoon of whole oat flakes.
I put the flour in a bowl (4-5 cups), added the yeast and salt and mixed well, adding warm water little by little until a hard dough was formed (which came away from the fingers). Then I added the olive oil and kneaded it again (a little more flour was needed when I kneaded), then letting it rest for about an hour in the covered bowl. After an hour, the dough had already doubled in volume, I kneaded it again until it became a compact cake and then the fun of making the loaves followed ;).
I formed the dough in the form of a baguette and began to fold it, as I did with puff pastry. Step 1: I took the ends of the baguette and joined them in the middle, then I rolled the dough on the board until it became a baguette again. Step 2: I folded the baguette again, this time in the middle and then rolled it again to the baguette stage (I realized that this whole procedure helps the dough to be a little more fluffy). Then I cut the baguette into 4-5 cm long pieces and started forming the loaves. I then soaked each loaf in water and then put it through the seed mix so the seeds remained stuck.
I placed all the loaves in the stove pan previously covered with flour, covered them with a kitchen towel and let them rise for another hour.
Then I heated the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, I put the tray with the already risen breads.
In addition, and now I will reveal my secret, I also put a saucepan half filled with water in the oven to create humidity and thus prevent the crust of the bread from hardening (I thought that this would be a condition fulfilled by a professional oven and I tried to adapt in the absence of such an oven – the important thing is that it worked :)).
I left the loaves in the oven for about 50-60 minutes, took them out of the oven, covered them again with the towel until they cooled down a bit, then I couldn’t resist the temptation and tasted it… even though I knew too much well from the nutrition course that the bread must be eaten when it is at least one day old…I ate the rest of the loaves starting the next day.
That’s about it, healthy thanks to the high intake of vitamins and minerals and low calories, and unbelievably tasty, especially in combination with homemade butter with spices ;).
