Seedy Multigrain Sourdough Bread

It’s FINALLY here!! I apologize for the long wait for this recipe. I’d like to say I just have really great boundaries about not working in the evenings/while my children are awake, but ultimately I’m just too lazy to do anything productive after 5:30 pm 🤪. If you’re interested in seeing a video of this in real action, head over to my instagram stories. I tried to make it a little more succinct and did some 2X speed. It’s not super cohesive, but it gives you the idea.

You’ll need a sourdough starter in order to make this. If you have a friend who makes it, ask them to share the love and give you some. If not, I made my own starter using this post. I’ve been making regular white sourdough for a year and a half now and we’ve really enjoyed it. But THEN.... Then I discovered this bread. I LOVE the nuttiness and chewiness of this recipe and we enjoy it both warm and soft or toasted. And if you want to be really crazy, have it both savory and sweet. Cut a nice thick piece and top half with avocado, garlic salt, and an egg and the other half with almond butter, cinnamon, and strawberries.

This recipe DOES take a long time to make and is a bit involved, so I suggest making it on a Friday/Saturday night and baking the next morning or a Saturday/Sunday morning and baking it in the evening. Either way, the end result is 100000% worth it.

Although I’ve been making sourdough for awhile, I still feel like a novice. I don’t know all the ins and outs of it, and I certainly don’t follow all of the sourdough “rules,” but I find that this works for me. Even if it turns out a little flat, it’s still delicious. One major thing that I do is bake it in a 6-inch saucepan. The smaller circumference of the dish allows it to rise more and completely circular. If you have a saucepan with a lid that can go in the oven, I HIGHLY recommend you do it that way.

This bread is only fresh for the first few days, so I recommend cutting and freezing a few pieces if you don’t expect to eat it everyday. However, there are weeks that we have zero difficulty eating it all. I am perfectly okay with eating it everyday, or even twice a day. 😉

If you end up making this, please please let me know what you think!!

Yield: 1 loaf

Author: Ashley Smith, RD

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Seedy Multigrain Sourdough Bread

Chewy, nutty sourdough bread that is perfect alone or topped with your favorite toast toppings. You'll never want to go back to store bought bread again!

Cook time: 50 MinTotal time: 50 Min

Ingredients

DOUGH

• 50-75 g sourdough starter
• 300 g water
• 100 g whole wheat flour
• 400 g all purpose flour
• 10 g salt

SEED MIXTURE

• 2 Tbsp pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
• 2 Tbsp millet
• 2 Tbsp sunflower seeds, salted
• 2 Tbsp quinoa
• 2 Tbsp flax seed
• 3 Tbsp oats (old fashioned or quick)
• 3/4 cup boiling water

Instructions

1. Feed your starter with 1/4 cup all purpose flour and 1/4 cup water 1-2 hours before making dough to activate your starter. You can add a teaspoon of starter to a bowl of water to see if it is ready. If it floats immediately, it’s ready to make bread with.
2. Using a food scale, add 50-75 grams of sourdough starter to medium sized bowl. Add 300 grams of water and stir to combine. Add whole wheat, all purpose flour, and salt and stir until fully combined. You may have to use your hands to get it fully incorporated. Cover with saran wrap or wet towel and set aside for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, combine all of the seed/grain mixture in a small bowl and add boiling water.
3. After the dough and seed mixture have rested for 30 minutes, add the seed mixture and combine with your hands until is it fully incorporated. Cover and set aside for 30 minutes. Once your timer goes off, “stretch” the dough by wetting your hand, grabbing the dough and pulling it up and towards the center, and continuing in a counter clockwise direction until you’ve stretched the dough 1-2 times completely around. Cover and stretch 1-2 times more (30 minutes apart) or just leave on the counter. More stretching increases the gluten structure strength. Leave the dough on your counter for 8-12 hours or until it is jiggly and has bubbles.
4. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, heavily flour a work surface and place dough on the flour. Shape the dough by folding the dough in a counterclockwise direction. Once you’ve gone completely around, flip the dough seam-side down and tuck the dough under. Place into a large dutch oven with parchment paper or a greased 6 inch oven-safe sauce pan seam side down. “Score” the dough by cutting the top of the dough with a sharp knife.
5. Turn the oven down to 450 and place the dough in the oven WITH the lid on and bake for 20 minutes. Take the lid off and bake for an additional 30 minutes.
6. Once the bread is fully baked, take out of the pan and cool on a cooling rack for an hour. Devour! Store in an airtight bag or container for up to 4 days.

Fall Apple Muffins with Crunchy Cinnamon Topping

This recipe was created in collaboration with Midwest Dairy as part of the dairy community’s Undeniably Dairy campaign . I was compensated for my time, but the content and opinions included are my own.

It’s fall, ya’ll…or can we agree it’s basically winter already?? It’s currently 16 degrees outside as I write this. Holy moly, summer transitioned into winter quickly! But to be honest, I’m loving cozy sweaters and pajama pants, candles, hot coffee, and pumpkin spice EVERYTHING. If you follow me on instagram, you know that I’m already listening to Christmas music. There’s no shame in my game.

So in light of the changing weather, fall produce, and the upcoming holidays, I am bringing you these delicious fall apple muffins with crunchy cinnamon topping!!

My neighbor recently had a baby (I promise this is a relevant story), so I wanted to bring her family some snacks to eat on while they figured out a rhythm for taking care of a newborn. I know when we had Camden that meals brought to us was so helpful. And I also know that my hunger was like none other, so snacks and substantial meals were essential. I found an apple muffin recipe that I made for them, but found them to be super dry and dense, and they weren’t sweet enough for my preference. So I decided I needed to perfect my own apple muffin recipe. After a few tries, I found a recipe that brings the right amount of sweetness (it’s there, but not overly so) and is tender and moist.

A few of my tricks for this recipe is the buttermilk, almond flour, and preparation technique. Now, I’m sure you could use regular milk (you know, because thinking AHEAD to get buttermilk doesn’t always happen), but buttermilk gives it moisture and a nice fluffy texture. Leftover buttermilk is great for pancakes, biscuits, scones, and even oven fried chicken nuggets. The majority of the flour used is white whole wheat and all purpose, but I added a little almond flour to make them more moist. It’s actually a trick I use in a lot of my baked goods. Lastly, I made sure to not over mix the batter. The instructions included help to minimize mixing so that your muffins don’t turn out like a rock. You’re welcome. 😉

Oh and that crunchy cinnamon topping? It’s optional, but not really optional, if you know what I mean. It reminds me of coffee cake…which is why I think you should make them for a thanksgiving/friendsgiving/special-family-gather brunch. And if you want to make them a little more fancy, just drizzle some powdered sugar icing or cream cheese frosting on top!

I’d love to hear if you made these and what you think!!

Yield: 12 muffins

Author: Ashley Smith, RD

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Fall Apple Muffins with Crunchy Cinnamon Topping

Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 15 MinTotal time: 30 Min

Ingredients

Wet Ingredients

• 1 C buttermilk (warmed in microwave for 30 seconds)
• 1 egg
• 1/3 C melted coconut oil
• 1/4 C maple syrup

Dry Ingredients

• 1 1/4 C white whole wheat flour
• 2/3 C all purpose flour
• 1/3 C almond flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 C finely diced apple (granny smith, pink lady, or honeycrisp)

Crunchy Cinnamon Topping

• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 3 Tbsp white sugar
• ½ tsp cinnamon

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425.
2. Finely chop apple and combine with remaining dry ingredients. Mix together.
3. In a separate bowl, microwave the buttermilk to warm it slightly. If not, the melted coconut oil will solidify and make mixing difficult. Add the egg, maple syrup, and coconut oil.
4. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry, being careful to not over mix the batter (that makes them dry and dense). Grease a 12 muffin tin and divide the batter evenly—the tins will be full.
5. Microwave the butter and add the sugar and cinnamon and mix. Top muffins with a teaspoon or so of mixture.
6. Bake for 5 minutes, decrease temperature to 400 and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Muffins are done when a toothpick comes out clean.

For more dairy inspired recipes, you can check out https://dairygood.org/recipes.

6 Things I'm Loving Lately

Hello hello, friends!! What has everyone been up to? Life has been a little crazy on our end and I feel like I’m treading water to keep my head above. But it’s also been really good, and I feel like fall (or has the weather decided it’s already winter??) has been really refreshing for my heart and mind. I wanted to post something fun with a few of the things I’ve really been enjoying lately. I originally was going to share, but I just had to include all six!…So here you go!

1. This white chicken chili from Fit Foodie Finds. I have a really random, but prominent memory of eating white chicken chili with tortilla chips and cheese in a styrofoam bowl in the the hallway of a school during my brother’s basketball game. My family couldn’t afford to eat out, so my mom would prep food in a crockpot and bring all the necessary accompaniments so that we could eat dinner on game nights. She is such a rockstar.

My mom’s recipe is super delicious, but I came across this recipe on instagram and really wanted to try it out. It did NOT disappoint. It’s super hearty, filling, and delicious. Anyone else love hominy? Just me?

2. Candles on cold, dark mornings. Candles just make everything cozy, am I right?! Last year I had a candle that smelled so so good from Bath and Body Works. Unfortunately, they no longer make that scent and when I looked it up on Amazon, they were like $27…for a candle. So instead, I’ve been enjoying a woodwick candle (again, crackling candle=cozy).

3. My new rug. I’m horrible at making decisions, especially when money is involved. I had been eyeing this rug for several weeks/months and couldn’t decide if I should buy it or not. I saw an ad on facebook marketplace for THE perfect coffee table (it was a round marble top table with gold legs 😍) and it was on a similar looking rug, which confirmed that I needed this rug. I got the rug, but the table sold too quickly. For those interested, I got it from RugsUSA.

4. Cleaning my sink more regularly. Let’s be honest, cleaning my house isn’t my strength. Like at all. Both ImmaEatThat and The Real Life RD recommended this website. She had a clean your sink every night challenge, but that’s just not realistic for me. I’ve been using her sink scrub “recipe” a few nights a week and it makes me feel so clean and put together! Maybe one day I’ll be able to clean it every night, but that day is not today.

5. French toast with sourdough bread. I’ve lived the last 29 years thinking I didn’t like french toast. But the other day, I offered it as an option for breakfast to Isaac (to be polite, but secretly hoping he didn’t choose it) and that’s what he chose. I considered making something else for myself, but decided to try it. Oh. My. Goodness. I was so so wrong about french toast—it’s delicious. I just scramble an egg with milk and cinnamon and then dip the bread in it until it’s soaked all the way through and then cook it on a greased/buttered skillet. I then top it with peanut butter, banana, and syrup. Yum!!

6. Interior Design Masters on Netflix. I stumbled upon this show and absolutely LOVE it! It’s a competition with various individual and group challenges to design rooms, retreats, shops, etc in two days and each week, someone is kicked off the show. I love seeing the transformations, the interactions between the contestants, and the British accents.

I hope you find some inspiration in the things I’ve been enjoying lately. I’d love to hear from you—what are YOU enjoying??