Multigrain and Seeded Sourdough Boule

This Multigrain and Seeded Sourdough Boule is a wonderful hearty bread filled with lots of whole grains and topped with a variety of seeds. 

This is a large loaf of bread that you bake in a Dutch oven. It includes sour dough starter, whole grains and seeds, and a combination of unbleached white and white whole wheat flour. It makes excellent toast, and lasts for quite a few days. It is really easy to work with this dough.

If you don't have sour dough starter, you can still make this bread! 

Just mix up a poolish the day before. Mix together 1 cup of water, 8 ounces of flour, and a little more than 1/8 tsp. instant yeast in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 3 to 4 hours until it becomes bubbly. Refrigerate immediately. This mixture can be used for up to 2 to 3 days to make this loaf.

For the multigrains in this bread, I use a mixture of Bob's Red Mill 7 or 10 grain cereal and maybe I'll toss in some steel cut oats, wheat flakes, rye chops, whole flax seeds, flax meal if I have it, sesame seeds, and some unsalted sunflower seeds. It all depends on what I have on hand. 

If you just want to add the cereal that works too. The total weight should be 142 grams (about 1 cup). For a shortcut, you can use King Arthur Baking's Harvest Grains Blend. 

For smaller loaves with even more seeds, definitely try Rustic Multigrain Bread. It also includes a sourdough starter. 

To top this bread, use whatever seeds you have on hand. I used a combination of white sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, poppy seeds, golden flax seeds, and brown flax seeds. 

I don't recommend using Everything Bagel seasoning because the longer baking time can cause the dried onion and garlic to burn. 

To keep your seeds fresh, especially if you like to keep a variety on hand, I recommend storing them in the freezer. Seeds, like nuts and whole grains, contain fat, which can go rancid. 

The freezer is also a great place to keep whole grain flours too if you have room. 

What is white whole wheat flour?

This recipe includes white whole wheat flour along with bread flour. 

White whole wheat flour is milled from hard white spring wheat, which is lighter in color and milder in flavor than "regular" red whole wheat. It still contains all of the whole grain nutrition. 

You can use it just as you would standard whole wheat flour in any recipe. 

If you are new to baking sourdough bread, this is a great recipe for cutting your teeth. The dough isn't so wet that you can't manage the slackness, and there is some extra added "insurance" with the addition of a little bit of instant yeast in the final dough. 

Plus, this is a great recipe to for using up a good amount of your starter, two cups! Your loaf is sure to be super flavorful and it will stay fresh for days. 

This bread also freezes exceptionally well after baking and cooling. Just wrap it in foil and freezer wrap before freezing. 

For the second rise, place the shaped loaf in a room temperature Dutch oven with a lid. I use an Emile Henry 4.2 quart clay Dutch oven. You can use any 4 quart or larger Dutch oven, and with this recipe, you don't have to preheat it. 

To prevent sticking, line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper that you have sprayed with spray oil. you can even let the parchment paper come up the sides of the pot to make it easy to lift the finished loaf out of the pan. 

If you don't have a Dutch oven, you can bake this bread on a pizza stone or baking sheet. 

To create steam, which is the purpose of the lidded Dutch oven, you can either create a steam oven by placing a pan on the bottom rack of your oven and add some boiling water or ice cubes at the beginning of baking, or you can invert a large metal bowl over the loaf for the first 20 to 30 minutes of baking. 

Note: If you do bake the loaf without using a Dutch oven, either on a baking sheet or baking stone, the total baking time should be reduced to about 40 to 45 minutes.

For the sourdough starter, use 100 percent hydration. What that means is that there is an equal amount of water and flour by weight in the starter. The consistency is like pancake batter. 

This is an updated post, originally published in August, 2012. I've updated the photos and instructions. I loved rediscovering this bread, which was adapted from King Arthur Baking.