makes 2 medium loaves
If you run a bakery in this era in which whole, natural ingredients are a big selling point, you must offer a multigrain bread. Yet at many bakeries, this is just a bread made mostly with white flour, with some seeds and whole grains mixed in. I don’t care for this approach. It looks all crunchy and healthy, but in truth, the small amounts of whole ingredients don’t improve the taste or nutritional value of the bread much. They are mostly “health food decoration.”
There is an advantage, though, to combining grains and other ingredients to create a new flavor and texture profile, as in this recipe. It utilizes a soaker that includes amaranth, millet, and sesame seeds. Toasting them brings out nutty flavors, and soaking them adds interesting fermentation notes. Toasting also brings the oil in these ingredients to the surface, allowing it to seep more easily into the crumb of the bread while it bakes. Then, as in so many of the best recipes, the proteins and sugars combine in a fundamental chemical process called the Maillard reaction, which reveals the flavors inherent in the ingredients. I don’t mean to drown you in breadspeak jargon here. This is just a complex way of saying that, once again, some simple ingredients—fermented and baked—produce beautifully complex and nuanced flavor.