How to make a seed loaf

There are few greater pleasures in life than having freshly baked bread in the house. I’ve spoken about this before in my Potato & Pecorino bread post but I will continue speaking about it until everyone I know (and that means all of you), has baked their own bread. Even just once. The entire process is therapeutic and the end result always leaves me so chuffed with myself. Almost like I want to parade my little loaf of bread around and show everyone saying “Look, Look what I made.” I mean, I do that but C and my family are getting bored of looking at bread.

The only other greater pleasure than that is when said bread takes all of 5 minutes to knock together and you still get that satisfied feeling afterwards. That is what this delicious seed loaf is all about. I based this recipe off one I found in a delightful new cookbook called “A Life in Food” by Bea Tollman. I was sent this delightful book by Bea’s people at her hotel group, Red Carnation Hotels. Bea started the hotel group with her husband Stanley and she was always in charge of the food side of their successful establishments. In the book Bea writes that she became intrigued with food at 16 when she travelled to Europe visiting France & Italy. A few years later she married Stanley, a man with a great passion for food, who’s family was deeply involved in the Hospitality industry. She developed menus for their various hotels and most of the 4 & 5 star hotels in their portfolio (all across the world), still serve some of these menu items. This book is filled with lovely old photographs of Bea & Stanley’s days as young hoteliers along with photos of their beautiful hotels and nostalgic recipes with classic flavour combinations. Among my favourites are the recipes for black pepper prawns, chicken liver pate and Bea’s cheesecake.

This seed loaf immediately also caught my eye and I knew I had to try it. I used Bea’s recipe as a base to work from but added more seeds (simply because I had them in the kitchen). For the original recipe, get your hands on a copy of this wonderful book which is as much a cookbook as it is a wonderful memoir on a life well lived. The book is available from any of the RCH hotels and all proceeds go to Mrs Tollman’s favourite charities, UK based Starlight Children’s foundation and The Tick Tock Club.  

How to make a seed loaf

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Course: Baked goods, Bread, Healthy

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 40 minutes minutes

Servings: 6 -8

Author: Alida Ryder

Ingredients

• 250 g 1.5 cups whole wheat flour
• 100 g 1 cup rolled oats
• 75 g 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 50 g 1/3 cup linseeds (flax seed)
• 35 g 1/4 cup chia seeds
• 75 g 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
• 50 g 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 500 ml 2 cups plain yoghurt
• 1/2 cup sunflower oil
• 4 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

• Pre-heat the oven to 180°c and line a loaf tin with baking paper.
• In a large bowl, combine the flour, oats, seeds, wheat germ, baking powder and baking soda and mix well.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the yoghurt, oil, honey and salt.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well to combine.
• Transfer the mixture to the prepared loaf tin then bake at 180°c for 20 minutes then turn down to 150°c and continue baking for 1 hour until the loaf is golden brown and a skewer inserted comes out clean.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool before serving.