When You Can Bake, Why Not Bake Healthy?

Samruddhi Nayak is a home baker who experiments with her recipes as part of the venture KrumbKraft in Bengaluru.

Baking your own bread is more than just a culinary endeavor. It is the sheer joy derived from milling, measuring, and stirring; waiting as the dough rises, smelling the aroma of butter and finally getting to see the dough transformed into a golden-brown loaf of bread.

There is no better time to experiment with baking than Christmas! So, why not expand the possibilities of baking healthy? Whole wheat bread is not necessarily dense, dry, and tasteless.

Samruddhi Nayak is a home baker who experiments with her recipes as part of the venture KrumbKraft in Bengaluru. Well-known for her healthy bread recipes, her signature dish is the highly fibrous six seeds whole wheat bread. She prefers to start from scratch by milling her own flour and then giving a nutty taste to her moist, fine-grained, faintly sweet loaf.

Here’s how you can bake the six seeds whole wheat bread at home:

Six Seeds Whole Wheat Bread (Time Taken: 2.5 hours)

Ingredients
For Dough:

• Milk   215-230 grams
• Butter melted and cooled   20 grams
• All-purpose flour   180 grams
• Whole wheat flour   125 grams
• Seeds (nigella, sesame, flax, melon, sunflower, pumpkin) 50 grams
• Oats   25 grams
• Salt   1 1/8 tsp
• Sugar   1 tbsp
• Instant Yeast   1 ½ tsp

Topping:

• Few tablespoons of water
• Seed mix 2 tbs

Method:

1. Mix and knead all the ingredients to create smooth and supple dough.
2. Place the dough in a greased bowl covered with a shower cap and allow it to rise for 60-90 minutes.
3. Gently deflate and divide it into three equal pieces. Make small logs from each cut piece of the dough and roll it into long logs not more than 9 inches. Cover and let it rest for 10 minutes.
4. Squeeze the three logs together at one end. Knot it into a braid. When you get to the end, squeeze the three pieces together and tuck them underneath.
5. Transfer the braid to a lightly greased loaf pan.
6. Cover it with a shower cap again and let it rise for another 60 minutes. In the meanwhile, pre-heat the oven at 200°C.
7. Just before placing the loaf pan into the oven, brush the top with water and sprinkle some seeds on top.
8. Bake the bread for 15 minutes at 200°C and then reduce it to 180°C for the next 15 minutes.
9. Let the bread cool down at least for two hours before slicing.

(Video Credits: Rahul Sanpui)