Sesame Dill Whole Wheat Bread

Sesame Dill Whole Wheat Bread

My friend, to whom I am ever grateful for taking half of the loaves that I bake -- without complaint --has made a request that I put some dill into one of my breads.  This came at the same time that I was thinking about extensively using some sesame seeds in a bread.

So I combined the two, and made a "Sesame Dill Whole Wheat Bread".

Ingredients:

• 1000g ww flour
• 50g wheat germ
• 200g sourdough starter (100% hydration)
• 200g sesame seeds
• 50g dill seeds
• 680g water
• 25g sesame oil, added with salt after autolyse
• 25g water, added with salt and oil
• 20g salt

This was a dense dough.  I mixed it and kneaded it to incorporate all the ingredients except salt, gave it an autolyse period of about 30 minutes, and then added salt, oil and water.  i mixed this in the bowl and began stretching and folding it, for a couple of hours until i became tired.  Before going to bed, I put it in the fridge, covered.  

  

Next morning, I took it out of the fridge and noticed that the cover had come off, and the dough was exposed in places.  I let the dough sit for 2 hours before kneading it again, so that the whole dough was again hydrated evenly.

The loaves were baked on a stone.  One of the loaves had a most curious gringe, the hat being held in place by a mere thread, the sesames and dill seeds beneath it exposed and inviting.

Results

This is a wonderfully interesting bread, and I think it is the sesame oil that has made it so tasty.  The dill  taste is there, but it is mild, more of a scent behind the sesame taste.  Despite the high quantity of seeds, the sesame seeds on their own would not have supplied this blend of flavours and scents, it really took off with the addition of the sesame oil.

There are lots of benefits of dill, and since dill has been used a long time in the kitchen, these are widely known.  I wondered about its anti-microbial properties, and whether it would affect the bread's ability to be leavened by the lactobacillus bacteria (LAB) and yeasts in my sourdough.  There probably wasn't enough dill in the bread to have a major effect on the LAB.  Which makes me wonder whether it would have much of a beneficial effect from eating it?  Would it cause trouble if I had crushed the dill seed, and let the oil permeate the dough?

Sesame oil is more widely available.  My wife is always tossing out old sesame seeds because she believes they go rancid quickly, but the wiki on the oil repeatedly states that the oil is one of the most stable seed oils known, at room temperature.  I'm not sure what to believe.

This was a tasty bread, I liked it a lot.  I would repeat this loaf sometime, for sure.

That is, if I weren't always interested in experimenting with the next loaf, whatever it might be.

Notes to Myself

• I should have put some dill weed in this bread, too.  We don't have a lot of the plant in our garden this year though.  I've seen bread recipes with about 1/4 cup of the stuff.  Next time, I'll add about 1/2 a cup of weed, so that there is even more dilly taste.
• I've been making denser loaves lately, and that's okay.  I find them harder to stretch and fold, but I miss kneading dough, so to incorporate ingredients I have made recent doughs less wet.  I also think that they stand up a bit better in the oven when I bake them on a stone.
•  I wonder if you can buy dill oil the same way you can buy sesame oil? There is a wiki on it, so I guess you can, but I've never seen it for sale... I wonder if I can make some dill oil from garden dill using a dampfentsafter?