Mum's famous wholemeal bread

I have recently been making my own bread as the stuff we but at the shops just doesn't compare or fill you up as much as "williworld" bread. I have been following a recipe that mum wrote out for me a few years ago when I was living with Dan & Stelle in Albury. The recipe if for 3 loaves, each one weighing around the 1kg mark.

The recipe says to use dry bakers yeast but I have started my own sourdough starter and have been using that together with 1 teaspoon of yeast just to kick it along. Depending on how dense you want your bread you can vary the amounts of wholemeal and plain bakers flour and yes, you can add just about anything else you want too.

I have been adding some home made LSA (combination of ground Linseed, Sesame seed and Almonds) as well as some whole sunflour seeds and pepitas (pumpkin seeds i think). The loaf at the front in the top picture is different to the other two behind it as I added olives and a whole Kransky sausage to the middle of it. This idea was inspired by something I saw on French Food Safari. Was interesting to say the least :)

Of course, if you dont have a bread machine you are going to need some bread tins or rectangular cake tins unless you just make them into cobb loaves etc.

The recipe is as follows and uses dry yeast and not sourdough starter.

4-5 cups hot water (hand hot, not boiling)

1700g flour (any combination of wholemeal, bakers, soy etc.)

1Tbsp sugar

3tsp yeast

1Tbsp salt

1/3 cup olive oil

Set to froth 1c. water, the yeast, 1c flour and the sugar. Once your yeast froth mix is ready, combine 3c water with around 1200g of the flour. Set to rise for 45min-1hr. Once it has risen sufficiently, press it down with the salt and oil and combine the remaining flour. If it is too dry add a little more of the remaining water. Set to rise again in a warm place (hard to find in our house at the moment) till ready to use.

Next you need to divide the dough into 3 sections and knead, then set in tins and allow to rise for 15-20mins. While they are rising in the tins, preheat oven to around 250. Cook for 10mins at this temp then another 50mins at 180.