Hello Anna,
Thank you for the enthusiastic comment. You can add your seeds at the last stage of the kneading of the final dough (so the last minute of the 5 minute period). The amount can be adapted to personal preference. We would suggest to start with 15 to 20% of the total flour weight. You can lightly toast the seeds before adding them but it is not necessary. Seeds will absorb some of the liquid in the dough and when adding a lot you might need to compensate by adding extra liquid. But because this is already a wetter type of dough, with the amount we mentioned you can just stick to the recipe as described we expect.
Alternatively you can also make something called a ‘soaker’ with seeds and grains that can be added to a recipe where the grains and seeds are soaked (overnight) before adding them to the dough. We do not have a recipe at hand with this method, but you can find more info on sites like the fresh loaf about this.
Hope it will be great!

Love this recipe. Many thanks for sharing. One question I am puzzled with… if I would like to incorporate some seeds in it (linseeds, sunflower…) at which stage should I add them and how much is reasonable (do not want to risk the dough totally collapsing) ? Should I first soak them in water ? If so, should I deduct the amount of water in which seeds are soaked from the total water added ? Appreciate your advise.

Kind regards, Anna

Hello Douglas,
Thank you again so much for your enthusiastic comment and especially for pointing out the errors in the directions and time table. We already changed it, much appreciated!

Great the yeast-based poolish worked well and the result was to your satisfaction.

Happy baking from Holland

Btw, there are two discrepancies I noticed in the above entry. The first is in the directions for the poolish where it mentions whole wheat flour rather than spelt. This differs from the ingredient list. The second is in the directions for the bake, you say to preheat the oven to 235/455 but in the time line it states 230/445.

To those who don’t like sourdough or have family and friends who don’t like it, review the poolish/biga article on this site and use the formula given. For me, I made a 12 hr poolish using a 0.15% instant yeast amount (.45g).

Hi Sarah,
So good to read our suggestion was to your liking and inspired you to bake even more!

Lovely little loaf! I used the mini boules recipe, divided by three for one loaf and increased the final proofing time.

I ended up giving the one I made on Monday away to a friend – it had just come out of the oven and he gave me puppy eyes – so I had to make another one yesterday to be able to tell you how it turned out (any excuse to do more baking, really!) I love the texture, soft but with a nice bite and of course a great crust! Thank you so much again! 🙂

Thanks so much for this! Will try tomorrow and report back on results 🙂

Hi Sarah,
Thank you for your excellent comment. We would suggest the following.
Use our mini boules recipe as a base: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…i-boulles/
Instead of 6 boules you make 3 loaves of around 500 grams with it and you can substitute the wholewheat of spelt in this recipe. This way you have a 100% sourdough recipe with corresponding times. Just make sure to also bake them for 35 minutes.
Alternatively you can double the resting times for this recipe and double or very probably triple the final proofing for this recipe, depending on the enthusiasm of your sourdough and the temperature of the dough.

Hope this is helpful.

Happy baking!

Thanks for your enthusiastic comment Alison. Great the recipe and tips gave you good results too. Love the singing, never get tired of hearing it!

Happy baking!

I started the poolish with my all Canadian Wheat Flour Starter and followed all your hints and tips, especially the video hints. My loaf is now fresh out of the oven dark golden brown and singing (crackling). I have already eaten the crust and it is divine!

It didn’t need 45 minutes – 35 was enough in my oven.

Thank you for your lovely website.

Hello Ken,
That sounds awesome 🙂
Very good to hear you gave it another chance, overcame your baking fears and we played a part in your success.
Wishing you many more excellent loaves and high praise for them!

Happy baking,

Ed & Marieke

Your website and recipe have helped me become a bit of a local celebrity (well, with my own family anyway) for my bread – I make a boule using your recipe above, and it comes out fantastically every time.

Thank you from Ken in Kew

Before I start I have two questions (which I hope you don’t mind) firstly should I bother, or is it a step too far and secondly if I do does anything spring to your mind that I should take into account??

Thanks Mike H.

Hello Mike,
Thank you for sharing, that sounds great. Yes, you are right mini versions do have a lot of crust and your solution is perfect.
Enjoy!

Hello Rowan and Gijs,

How wonderful our ‘fluitjes’ are being baked all the way in Hungary! Great to hear they are such a success because your baking indeed sounds like more of a challenge than we have to face over here.
Thank you for liking and trying our recipe and wishing you all the best and many more breads from the clay oven,

Groetjes uit Nederland,

Ed & Marieke

Rowan and Gijs

Hello Suganya,

I understand flour can be confusing, there are different indications and names for different countries. We did an article about flour types a while ago which you might find helpful too. I think the thing that is closest to what we know and use in Holland as wheat flour and which we also use for this recipe is your Norwegian bread flour. An indication (if such information is given on the label of your flour) of the protein content of our flour is around 12.5%. Anything between 12 and 14 % is good for this recipe.

Hope this helps and hope you will try and like the recipe too.

Happy baking and happy Easter,

Marieke