Sunday, January 02, 2011

Simple Walnut Bread

enkeltvalnotsbrod

Here's another simple bread from the book "Enklare Bröd". (I did a simple white bread before.)

You don't need any machinery to make this, but it takes some time. If you can't be at home for the whole time, you can stick the dough in the fridge for a few hours inbetween two of the foldings.

Simple Walnut Bread
One loaf

25 g fresh yeast
3,5 dl water, tepid
330 g high-protein bread flour
60 g rye flour
2-3 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey
150 g walnuts

Start by mixing water and yeast. Add both flours, honey and salt, and stir into a dough. Finally add the walnuts, and mix in lightly. Leave to rest for 30 minutes.

Fold the dough: Wet your hand, and grab one side of the dough. Fold it towards the middle. Do the same all around the dough, 3-4 times. You'll feel the tension in the dough. Leave to rest for 30 minutes, and repeat twice - in total, fold the dough three times. Keep the dough covered with a towel, to prevent the surface doesn't dry out.

After the third folding, leave the dough to rise for one hour. After that, move it to a well-floured surface. Stretch the dough a little, so it forms an oval. Grab the top third and fold it towards the middle, and press down. Do the same with the bottom third of the dough. You'll now have a loaf-shape with a seam on top. Turn the dough seam-side down, still on your floured surface, and cover with a towel. Leave to rise for one hour.

Preheat your oven to 250°C, and if you have a baking stone or something similar, make sure you heat that, too. (A baking sheet works!)

Place the well-risen loaf on a baking paper (parchment, or teflon), seam-side up. Score the bread if you'd like, before swooshing it into the hot oven. (I used a cutting board to help transfer it - the parchment paper makes it easy.) Bake for a total of 35 minutes, but you can open the oven door to let out some steam every 10 minutes. I lowered the heat to about 200-225°C, since I don't like a too-hard crust, but for crustier bread, keep the heat high.

Also bear in mind that I have a convection oven, and yours might work differently. Always keep an eye on your bread. You can use a thermometer to check when you think the bread is finished - it should keep an inner temperature of at least 96°C.

Recipe in Swedish:
Enkelt Valnötsbröd

8 comments:

Feline Flodin said...

I can verify the tastiness of this bread!

Kenon Thompson said...

Nice simple bread! Did you/would you pair it with anything in particular or just eat it plain with a nice cup of coffee?

Anne said...

Kenon - it's excellent buttered with a slice of cheese, which is how I like most of my bread. That's what I, and many many other Swedes, have for breakfast, in some variation or other :)

Feline - glad you liked it!

Cara said...

The bread looks good. I want to make it. I have a question.
Where can I buy the high protein flour?

Anne said...

Cara - where do you live? In sweden, look for Vetemjöl Special or Manitoba Cream. In the US, pick bread flour. That's about as much as I know :)

Cara said...

Tack so mycket.I'll buy Vetemjöl Special or Manitoba Cream. I live in Sweden. I'm new here, so I've asked many swedish people about the bread flower but they just said " well. you can use normal flour and even a person said Vetemjöl Special is for cookies."
Happy new year.

Anne said...

Cara - best of luck! Vetemjöl Special is great - definitely not for cookies though! :) (Most people use regular all-purpose flour for breads as well but I like the chewiness that comes from using a stronger flour.)

Rossella said...

Brava! Walnut bread is one of my favourite. Recently I tried to add even dates with walnuts, it become even better.