Nuts, seeds and oats bread (“muesli”)

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This is my first attempt to make a muesli bread. It’s not exactly yet what I had in mind, however, it’s a very tasty bread and my flatmates seem to love it. It’s a nutty, wholesome bread with a little sweet edge due to the raisins. Unlike many nuts and seeds breads, this one is not particularly dense and combines well with pretty much everything you want to put on the bread.

Recipe

Overall formula (for 4 breads of ~ 1KG)

Hydration: 93,5%
Pre-fermented flour: 34,5%
Total time: 24 – 28hrs

Ingredient	Weight	Percentage
Wheat flour	859 gr	48,3%
Whole grain wheat flour	890 gr	50%
Whole grain rye flour (from mature SD culture)	31gr	1,7%
Raisins	167gr	9,4%
Nuts (whichever you prefer)	167gr	9,4%
Seeds (ditto)	111gr	6,2%
Oats	111gr	6,2%
Water	1664ml	93,5%
Salt	36 gr	2%
Yeast (instant)	0,2gr	0,01%
Total	4036 gr	226,7%

Pre-ferments

• Make the following two pre-ferment with 100 hydration and let it ferment for 8 hours at ~ 24°C/76F) or overnight at room temperature (~ 20°C/68F). Make sure to cover it so it doesn’t lose any water by evaporation. To compensate for loses while transferring the pre-ferments (sticking to spoons, bowl etc.) the amounts are a little more than you actually need.

Sourdough pre-ferment

Ingredient	Weight	Percentage
Wheat flour	290 gr	100%
Water	290 gr	100%
Mature sourdough culture (rye basis, 100%)	64gr	10%
Total	644 gr	210%

Yeast pre-ferment

Ingredient	Weight	Percentage
Wheat flour	315 gr	100%
Water	315 gr	100%
Mature sourdough culture (rye basis, 100%)	0,2gr	0,06%
Total	630 gr	200%

Roasting and soaking of the nuts and seeds

• About 2 hours prior to mixing the final dough, you can roast the nuts and seeds. Make sure not to roast seeds and nuts of different size in the same pan because you’ll either end up with having the small ones burned or the big one not fully roasted. I prefer roasting in the oven @ ~ 150°C/305F.
• When the nuts and seeds are done, mix them with the oats and raisins and pour over 240ml of water

Making the final dough and baking

• When pre-ferments are ready and the nuts, seeds, raisins and oats roasted and soaked you can start mixing the following ingredients. Adjust the water temperature so that the final dough temperature will be ~ 24°C/76F.

Ingredient	Weight
Wheat flour	273 gr
While grain wheat flour	890gr
Water	808ml
Salt	36gr
Pre-ferment (sourdough)	623gr
Pre-ferment (yeast)	610gr
Total	3240gr

• Mix and knead properly, about 10 – 15 mins by hand. The dough will be sticky and wet but at some point you’ll notice it is getting considerably stronger.
• Add the soaked nuts, seeds, raisins and oats and keep on kneading. After about 5 minutes they should be rather well incorporated.
• Transfer the dough to a greased (sunflower oil for example) container with lid (to prevent the dough from getting dry).
• After 50 minutes, give the dough a stretch and fold
• Repeat after 50 minutes
• Again, 50 minutes later (so in total 2,5 hours) divided the dough in 4 equal pieces and pre-shape for rectangular loaves.
• Let the dough relax for a few minutes (it doesn’t need that much time) and in the meantime either grease the baking pans or alternatively line them with parchment paper. The latter is what I do lately because I have lousy baking pans that stick all the time.
• Shape the dough, transfer to baking pans and cover with plastic (or just put them in a plastic bag)
• Put them in the fridge for overnight final fermentation (8 – 12 hrs).
• The next morning, pre-heat the oven and bake a ~ 210°C/410F for about 50 minutes with steam. After 35 mins open the vents to remove the steam for a nice crust. When done, they should be easily removed from the baking pan and sound hollow when you knock on the bottom of the breads.
• After baking immediately remove from they baking pans and tranfer to a rack to cool.

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