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sunflower experiments

I’ve long loved the taste of sunflower seeds in bread so I thought I’d try and develop a wholemeal and sunflower seed loaf. For my experiment I used 48% strong white flower, 52% wholemeal flour and 18% wheat germ. I guestimated 80% hydration but after mixing added a bit more water.

I made three large (1.1kg) boules and they came out looking fantastic:

The loaves fermented beautifully but the crumb was not as open as I prefer and I didn’t have enough sunflower seeds on hand to make them as nutty and rich as I would like. So, I’m going to do some more tests next week (increased hydration up to 87%, alter the flour ratios a bit, add loads more sunflower seeds and maybe a little honey to soften the crumb) before selling them at COGs (all going well) on Saturday 17 February.

Because these loaves are big, Rachel at COGS might even sell them as half rounds. Let’s see!

Up next subscribe more on costs Back in September I wrote a post about why Merton bread costs what it costs. A few things have changed since then so I thought I’d do a brief
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