It is good to experiment - using different flours and different ingredients - to come out with different breads for the family. Since I have both ground and whole pumpkin seeds at home (my hubby always toasts and grinds the pumpkin seeds for his overnight soaked oats) I decided to add the ground pumpkin seeds into my bread. In the first round I added too little of it resulting in the bread not having any taste of the seeds. In the second round I doubled the amount of the seeds to give my bread. The bread stayed soft till the third day. I cannot say about the fourth day as the bread had been finished by then. But what I can say is that it is a very delicious bread.
Ingredients:
- 300 g wholemeal flour
- 125 g bread flour
- 4 tbsp ground toasted pumpkin seeds
- 2 tsp yeast
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 220 - 230 g milk
- 30 g butter
- Decoration - 15 pcs pumpkin seeds
Method:
- Add wholemeal flour, bread flour, ground pumpkin seed, yeast, sugar and salt to the bowl of a stand mixer.
- Start the mixer on low speed to mix the ingredients.
- Add milk to the mixing bowl slowly. Feel the dough; you may not need all the milk. If the dough is dry, add more milk a spoonful at a time.
- Knead the dough till it becomes a round ball.
- Add butter and continue to knead till window pane is achieved.
- Transfer the dough to a greased bowl. Turn the dough to ensure that it is covered with oil.
- Cover the bowl with cling wrap or wet towel and let the dough proof for an hour or till it doubles in size.
- Punch the dough down to let out the gas.
- Roll the dough out into a long rectangular shape (horizontally).
- Fold the dough into 3 by bringing the right part onto the centre part followed by the left.
- Then roll the dough out again into a long rectangular shape (vertically) and fold into 3 again.
- Do this process at least 6 times (alternating between vertical and horizontal roll-outs).
- Once done, roll the dough into a rectangle using your pan to determine the length of your dough. (Pan size is 8 inch x 4 inch x 4 inch.)
- Roll up the dough, pinch the edges to seal the dough and place it into the pan seam-side down.
- Let the dough proof a second time till it doubles in size.
- Bake in pre-heated oven at 175 deg C for 30-35 minutes.
- When the bread is done, remove it immediately from the oven.
- Transfer it to a metal rack for them to cool down immediately before slicing it up.
