Cooking: White, Semolina, Rye and Sesame Sourdough

When I first started project sourdough I bought a big bag of semolina flour. I didn't really know why, but it seemed a good baker type thing to do!

I'm still not exactly what the best uses for semolina are. I've predominately used it for dusting my bannettons and homemade cardboard peel. However, I've always been tempted with the idea of actually baking a semolina loaf.

Last weekend I set out to make a white loaf and then saw a tweet from Diana about her 4S (Spelt-Semolina-Sesame-Sourdough) bread and an idea was formed.

Adapting the River Cottage Sponge method and this recipe I created a hybrid white, semolina, rye and sesame loaf.

The final loaf has a distinctly nutty sesame flavour. It takes you a little by surprise as you can't see the sesame seeds in the loaf unless you look closely. The rye flour adds an earthy flavour. There's lots of action going on in the crust. I think it would work really well as a toasted bread.

Although the main objective of the loaf was to bake with semolina flour for the first time it is completely unnoticeable in the final loaf (to me at least). The loaf didn't have a particularly open structure, but I'm not sure if the semolina made a difference to this or it was a factor of the rye flour and me horrendously over proving the bread.

Ingredients:
325ml of water
250g of white flour
Ladelful of starter
100g rye flour
200g semolina flour
12.5g salt
60g of sesame seeds

Method:
Create a sponge by mixing the water, white flour and starter and leave overnight.

Toast the sesame seeds and set to one side.

Add the rye, semolina four and salt to the sponge and knead for 10mins (I used a mixer). Add the sesame seeds in the final couple of minutes and knead through the dough.

Form into a round and place in a bowl to prove for an hour.

After an hour knock back, fold, form into a round again and then place back in the bowl. I repeated this step two / three times.

Shape the loaf and leave for a final prove. I gave my bread 5hrs (as I went out) which was a bit too long!

Heat the oven to 250 degrees. Bake with steam. After 10mins turn down the oven to 200 degrees and bake for a further 30mins. The loaf should bake for 40mins in total.