Longevity bread

 

If you haven’t made bread before, please read the recipe for Basic Bread, which goes into more detail about temperatures, rising, etc.  If you don't have an oven, follow the directions for: The Perfect Ovenless Loaf

I call this ‘Longevity Bread’, because it has so many good things in it that you should live forever! I reckon that all whole grain bread is good bread, but this has extra goodies, which the pundits would have you believe are health enhancing. There’s every chance, of course, that none of the ingredients actually do make any difference to your health, or risk of cancer, or whatever, but as they won’t do you any harm and because the end result tastes very good, this is a recipe that I use a lot. As you must have access to the Internet to be reading this, I’ll let you look up all the health benefits of the ingredients yourself.

The extras are: pumpkin seeds sunflower seeds, flax seeds (linseed), black and white sesame seeds and hemp seeds. I make up a large batch at a time in the proportion of 2:2:1:1:1:1.

2 cups wholewheat flour 

2 tbsp vital wheat gluten 

1 tbsp instant dried yeast 

1 tsp salt 

½ tsp sugar/honey 

½ cup of mixed seeds 

• 1½ cups water no warmer than 45°C (110°F) 
  

• Put 1 cup of flour (and the vwg) into a bowl, yeast, (sweetener) and salt. 
• Add the seeds and mix everything together. 
• Add the water and stir well until you have a smooth batter. 
• If you have plenty of time, allow this batter to rise for 20 minutes or so. This seems to lead to slightly better-textured bread. 
• Gradually add the rest of the flour, half a cup at a time. Before it’s all incorporated, you’ll have to abandon your mixing tool and get down to it with your hands. After a few minutes, you should have pleasantly yielding dough that isn’t particularly sticky. If it is, or you can’t roll it easily into a ball, add a little more flour. 
• Make a ball of the dough, flatten it out and roll it into a ‘sausage’. Put it in a greased ‘2 lb’ loaf tin and smooth it down. Cover and leave to rise. 
• Let the dough rise in a warm place for as long as is required. It should have doubled in size and be above the sides of the loaf tin when fully risen. 
• Bake in a Moderate oven for 30 to 40 minutes. When you take the loaf out of the tin, it should ‘sound hollow’ when you rap it with your knuckles. 
• Put it on a wire rack to cool. 

Variations:

• Use seawater instead of fresh water and salt. 
• Alter the seed mix to suit your own preferences. 
• Add coarsely chopped nuts. Hazelnuts are particularly good; walnuts are a bit dominating; Brazil nuts will give you your selenium allowance, which is something that is deficient in a lot of soils and therefore diets.