This is a lovely bread well worth making. You can add any muesli that you might have in the cupboard or just add a mixture of oats, nuts and dried fruit. You can add 50-100g of muesli to a simple white bread or follow my recipe below to add more taste and fibre to your bread. I make my own muesli by toasting some oats until lightly brown, adding seeds, nuts and dried fruit and a squeeze of honey.
Ingredients
250g strong white flour
250g wholemeal flour
50-100g muesli or a mixture of oats, nuts and dried fruit of your choice.
20g honey (optional)
5g easy bake/ instant yeast or 15g fresh yeast
5-10g fine sea salt
Approx 350-370g water
Method
Place the flours, muesli, honey (if you are using), yeast (crumble in the fresh yeast if using) and salt.
Add enough water to make a softly sticky dough. It’s hard to be precise as your flour and muesli may absorb more or less water. Start with 350g and splash in more as needed. Watch this video to see what your dough should look like and how to stretch and fold it to develop the gluten. If you prefer to knead this video will show you how. You can also use a stand mixer, this article describes my preferred method for using a stand mixer.
Once you have developed the dough using either the stretch and fold method, kneading or a stand mixer it is time to let the dough ferment. Keep the dough covered well, either with a large plastic bag, a shower cap or a proving cloth. If you keep the dough at room temperature it will have become light, airy and doubled in size in an hour or a little longer in a cool kitchen. To improve the flavour and texture of the loaf you can ferment it in the fridge overnight or for several hours. This is ideal if you have a busy day ahead and won’t be hanging around in the kitchen. It takes ten times longer for a loaf to prove in a fridge than at room temperature.
Once the dough has risen you can shape it however you like. In the photo above I cut the dough into eight even pieces. Shaped each piece into a roll and laid them out in a ring with one roll in the middle. I placed onto a well floured rimless tray (a baking tray turned upside down) to prove.
Preheat the oven to 220c, 425f, Gas mark 7 with a solid tray on the middle shelf. Steam the oven.
When the rolls (or loaf) is fully proved slide onto the hot solid tray and bake for 20 minutes for the rolls to 30 minutes for a loaf. You can check the internal temperature with a probe thermometer, it should reach 88C, 190f in the centre for it to be fully baked.
Allow to cool on a wire tray.
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