Naturally, I've seen copious posts of the amazing Sarah B's life changing loaf of bread floating around the internet for a couple of years now. It's so popular, everyone's on it, it's everywhere, clearly I'm late to jump on this seedy chewy wholesome tasty bready train. But I'm on it baby, here I am.
In her original recipe blog post, Sarah emphasised how easy it is to play around with the ingredients and amounts that you use; so long as you're keeping the general ingredient gist/dry to wet ingredient ratio relatively the same, you pretty much can't go wrong. And I'm never one to follow a recipe to the last word anyway, so I knew this would be my kinda baked good. I left out the nuts that feature in the original recipe, instead choosing to add pumpkin seeds (I love my pepitas just a little bit), and I also decided to reduce the overall amount of seeds in exchange for extra oats, as a way of lightening the loaf up a little bit. This was the first time I've ever used psyllium husk but now I'm a total convert because WOw that chewy texture that it gives to the bread is next level. Finally, I added a little less oil and a little more maple syrup, because why not and yum and it's still very much a savoury loaf but I always enjoy a subtle undertone of sweetness. Enjoy!
What you need:
1/2 cup of sunflower seeds
1/2 cup of pepitas
1/4 cup of ground flax
2 tblsp of chia seeds
2 cups of rolled oats
3 tblsp of psyllium husks
1 tsp of sea salt
1.5 tblsp of maple syrup
1.5 tblsp of olive oil
1.5 cups of water (plus a little extra)
What you need to do:
First up, I blitzed the sunflower and pumpkin seeds in a grinder/processor just to chop them up roughly. You don't want them to end up a meal, but just chopped up nicely. In a bowl, mix the sunflower and pumpkin seeds (I also added an extra small handful of each of them post-blitzing), ground flax, chia seeds, oats, psyllium, and sea salt. In a smaller bowl, mix the maple syrup, oil and water. Add the wet to the dry and mix well until all the liquid has been absorbed and the dough becomes thick. You may want to add a little extra water if it seems too thick (I added probably an extra couple of tablespoons) (although it is meant to be pretty thick so don't go too crazy). Pop into a loaf pan, push down on the dough until it's pretty set in, and leave aside for at least 2-3 hours, or even overnight. This is so the chia/flax/psyllium can all do their thing and set and bind nicely.
Preheat your oven to 180 celcius. Pop into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, then remove from the pan (you may need to stick a knife around the edges and knock it on a bench a few times) (otherwise a flexible silicon pan is always a good idea). Flip the loaf upside down and place it straight on the rack and bake for another 35-40 minutes. Let it cool completely before slicing up!
