If I am going to blog about food almost every day for a month there have to be  many bread posts as well, right? Right. If I could, I would bake bread every day. It has become such an addiction and I love to try new techniques. This week I left the sourdough starter in the fridge and used only yeast. To incorporate more flavour, I used the delayed fermentation method I learned from Peter Reinhart. Delayed fermentation means that you mix one part of your bread dough with a tiny amount of yeast and let it rest in the fridge over night. This will make the enzymes all go crazy and enhance the flavour of the bread.

For this bread, I used a mix of freshly milled flours: wheat, spelt, and rye.

Dark Wholemeal Bread with Flax Seeds

250 g whole wheat flour
250 g water
3 g fresh yeast (1 g instant yeast)

150 g whole spelt flour
100 g whole rye flour
150 g water
10 g salt
6 g fresh yeast (2 g instant yeast)
50 g whole flax seeds
50 g water

The day before mix whole wheat flour and water in a bowl. You can mix it with a spoon just until everything is combined. Cover with a plate or plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge for 8 hours.
Next day let the dough come to room temperature first. This is an important step you shouldn’t miss. Add remaining flours, salt, reamining yeast, and 150 g of water.

In a small bowl mix flax and 50 g of water and set aside.

Knead the dough for ten minutes. Because the dough consists of whole meal flours only it won’t be as elastic as regular bread dough. This bread has a relatively high water content, so it will also be considerably wetter, a bit like thick cake batter.
During the last minute of kneading add the flax mixture. The flax should have absorbed all the water by now. Knead the dough for another minute or until the flax is well incorporated. Preheat your oven to 250°C/480°F. Grease a loaf pan or line it with parchment paper and transfer the dough to the pan. Let the dough rise until doubled, or for one hour.
Transfer it to your oven and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 220°C/420°F and bake for another 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. A very good way to determine if your loaf is done is a candy thermometer. Stick it into the centre of the baked bread and if it registers 93°C/200°F the bread is done. Let cool completely before slicing.