I adapted this recipe by Nigella Lawson, making it vegan (and more nutritious) by substituting ground flax seeds for egg white. It’s a dense, seedy loaf (2 lbs.) with complex flavors and slow fermentation, a dark variation of Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread. A forgiving recipe that accepts variations and slices beautifully. I love it with smoked salmon or avocado. You can reduce or alter the whole seeds to your taste. I usually make two smaller (1 lb. each) loaves because they bake faster and I like to freeze one.
Ingredients
20 ounces mix of Guinness stout beer and filtered water. A can of Guinness is just under 15 ounces, but maybe you don’t mind opening two cans, so you can drink the rest. Maybe you have the stuff on tap! I use one can of stout plus 4-5 ounces of water. Place the liquid in a large, deep bowl. You can of course also use another dark/stout beer. If you like your bread without noticeable sweetness, omit the sugar.
whisk in:
2 Tbs. molasses
1 Tbs. sugar
2 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
Whisk together the dry ingredients:
4 ounces ground flax seeds, either golden or regular (1/2 cup, 114 grams)
300 grams bread flour (about 2.5 cups)
300 grams dark rye flour (2.5 cups)
1/4 tsp. instant yeast
35 grams unsweetened cocoa (I’ve used both Dutch process and non-alkalinized–both work although the color is lighter with the latter.) (3 Tbs.)
2 scant Tbs. caraway seeds
2 scant Tbs. nigella seeds
2 scant Tbs. fennel seeds
Feel free to change the seeds to your taste, even leave them out.
Stir the dry ingredients into the liquid until well mixed. The photo above is the just-mixed dough. Let sit at room temperature, covered, for 16-24 hours. The dough will rise only slightly; the texture will become a bit spongy; you might smell the fermentation. The top will have tiny bubbles. Gently place the dough into a large loaf pan (or two smaller ones) that you have prepared by creating a parchment liner sling and then coating with vegetable oil. At this point if you are not ready to bake, you can refrigerate (retard) the dough. Let rise in the pan another 3-4 hours or so or until the dough has risen again by half. Again, it will not rise much, and you can also refrigerate it at this point. Bring the dough back to room temperature before you bake.
The photo to the left is the dough before placing it in parchment sling/pans. The photo to the right is the dough before baking. When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees–convection works well. Bake for 40 minutes or until internal temperature is 200 degrees. One large loaf will take longer, start testing at 50 minutes. Carefully take the loaves out of the pan with the parchment sling and return to the oven without the sling for another 10 minutes to crisp the crust. Let cool completely before slicing.
Natasha Saje 