Flax & Sunflower disaster!

I made this bread once ... foul mess. The linseeds soak up most of the liquid turning into a jelly like consistency.  Dough was way to wet from memory. Remember thinking I would never use that formula again.

Phil

Hamelman's flax seed rye from Modern Baking is a winner.

Here is a link to Hans Joakims blog where he has a link to a modified formula.

Cheers, Phil

Add some rolled oats (they are real soaker uppers) and salt (2% of oat weight) and let the dough sit 10 minutes before adding more oats.

Next time, make the soaker only double the water of the flax by volume (one cup flax, one cup of water)  sunflower seeds don't soak up much if anything at all.  That would make it easy to reduce the amount of seeds (if one chose to)  and still come out right.

I have been making the Tartine country bread and it has been great so I thought I would try the flax seed one and it just didn't work out well.. I don't think you are supposed to drain the seeds because he says in the recipe it will be gooey but I didn't expect it to be that jelly like!  It just seemed to be too many seeds also.  He describes the bread as moist because of this, but I just didn't like the taste or texture.  It was almost too moist when baked.  I had a very hard time shaping it and it was slippery.  I wish I would know where I went wrong.

Maybe there was something missing in the recipe?  Has anyone been successful with it? Maybe I should have tried his ww before trying this one.

Penny

I baked Tartine's sunflower and flax loaf today and too had problems, despite only using slightly over half of the flax seeds called for (which still seemed like too many). After realizing how wet the dough had become, I decided to bake one of the loaves in a bread pan (I divided half of my dough in to 1 large boule and the other half into two smaller batards). It came out much more pleasant looking, but I still wouldn't claim it a success.

Hamelman soaks his flax overnight in cold water. His 3/8 cup of flax uses 3/4 cup of water and the next morning is like a gel.  I followed that recipe and the flax addition was great.

Robertson's formulation is impossible. The flax has to have time to absorb the water. I think there's an error, either printing or formula.  Glad I found this thread as I was tempted to make the bread.  I might still only with an overnight cold soak.

hester

I've made this one several times.  I don't agree that the recipe says to pour the water over the seeds through a strainer.  That said, it's just a blob that can't be shaped.  I plopped it into a proofing basket and it turned out fine.  I also put it in a loaf pan for the final proofing.  This worked out well.  I think there's an error in the book. 

The "same" recipe is in Tartine Book No. 3  However, the recipe in Book No. 3 only calls for about 1 cup of flax seeds and one cup of water for the flax seed soaking. This should probably solve the problem.  I've made the recipe in Tartine Bread book and it's a gooey mess.  It's good but a mess.  

I followed the recipe with only minor adjustments to dough handling / cooking times and was pleased with the results.   Yes it was very hydrated and was a challenge but no need to drain or reduce flax seed amount.  The flax seeds I used completely absorbed the 4 cups of water and was a gooey pudding.  Also be sure to use the "whole wheat" bread recipe.  When I did the bench rest (30 minutes) I did not cover the dough.  I then powdered top, flipped it and formed ball for another 30 minute bench rest.  I was beginning to notice a skin on it and worried but figured the loss in moisture would help me to fold and basket.  The folding was tricky and sticky but was able to manage.  I thought for sure when I placed the dough blob onto a plate of sunflower seeds that I'd never pick it back up but it stayed together and COMPLETELY filled the basket.  After an overnight stay in the fridge I cooked it at Tartine 3 temps (500) for 20, then reduced to 450 for 15 minutes.   Then removed the dutch oven lid and baked for 25 minutes.   The end temperature was 205 and it rose up beautiful with a nice crumb.  The loaf is dense due to seeds, very moist and incredibly tasty / addicting.  Hang in there when you bake high hydration bread.  Did Chad make a mistake or did he put a challenging recipe in to test your limits / abilities.  You have to adapt to perfect.

I've looked on Amazon and there are several bread authors with "Tartine" in the title. Which author, or full title, are you referring to? Thanks...

To golfermd - This is the book people are referring to: http://www.powells.com/book/tartine-bread-9780811870412

I made the Flax & Sunflower Seed variation yesterday - before I read this thread. It turned out pretty good despite the flax gel situation. I probably won't make it again but I'm happy I stuck with the recipe as written, at least for the first time out. 

Pic top left after flax and seeds were added. Top right is before the preshape. Very slack dough. Had a hard time scoring it.

Hi, first time posting here.

I've just mixed in the soaked seeds to the tartine 1 recipe and I've had the same results. A horrible mess! I've added some more flour and a bit more salt and it's feeling a bit better.

I will be baking it in the morning and hope it's good! What a mess my surface is in now!

I really wish I looked for this post before making the batch !!!! :)

Thanks for the info though, it's good to know I didn't make any mistakes.

Chet Baker

first time post here. was about ready to give up all hope after mixing in the seed soaker- knew it was way too wet even after trying to mitigate by putting it through a strainer- but the flax membrane made it impossible to strain out anything less than the water that was sitting on top of the mixture so i was left with an extremely wet and slimy dough. that being said i wasn't exactly following the recipe verbatim from the start- opted to try doing a seeded country loaf using 85/20 white to whole wheat (75% hydration, 20% leaven), and my seed soaker was 1.5 cups flax, 1/4 cup nigella seeds, 1/4 cup sesame seeds, which i added along with 1 cup toasted pumpkin seeds after the first set of turns in bulk fermentation. after i added the seed soaker i came here and found this thread and felt pretty defeated but decided to march onward after reading a few success stories. i decided that in the shaping i would use an extremely heavy hand in flouring the dough and use whole wheat to absorb as much moisture as possible. the dough was still a nightmare to work with- super slimy, wet, and sticky- but i was able to get them into the boules in reasonable shape. after a night in the fridge i baked the first in a preheated 500º oven that i turned to 450º and for 20 min lid on, then about 35 min lid off. ended up with decent oven spring and a beautiful crust and ever so slightly moist crumb but not too moist. second loaf i baked at 500 for first 20 min lid on, then another 30 at 450 lid off and that turned out really nice- not as great of an oven spring but i attribute that to less success with the shaping folds on that one. excellent crumb and crust and gorgeous nutty savory flavor from the toasted pumpkin and nigella seeds. 

We are masochists for trying to make this work!

I've added flax seeds to my basic loaf without soaking them and it turned out good.  I've attached a picture below.  Not sure if you can see the flax seeds as there weren't a whole lot of them.

44D4F464-3265-4A93-A1F6-4710AE8BAB5E_1_105_c.jpeg

made it again but with a new seed soaker ratio- did 3:4 seeds to water by weight and it turned out good. much easier to work in the seeds and it wasnt a sloppy wet mess. still on the wet side overall but getting closer for sure. 

This is a bread I bake pretty regularly. It is my wife's favorite.

AP Flour: 500 grams
WW Flour: 165 grams
Rye Flour: 20 grams
Water: 555 grams
Leaven: 200 grams
Mixed seeds (Sunflower, chia, flax, sesame): 145 grams
Salt: 16 grams

I mix the flour and seeds together dry then add the leaven and water. After about 45 minutes I add the salt.

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of the finished loaf. I'll try to remember to take some after the next bake if someone would like to see the result

Beautiful loaves Walter, well done.  Bet they are delicious with those seeds, you can’t beat a seeded bread in my opinion.

Benny

I used the exact same measurements as mentioned in book 1. The only thing I did different was to put it in the fridge after the bulk fermentation for 1.5 hours before shaping. Also did the proofing in the fridge overnight. The dough was holding up.

Hope this helps. 

I make the sunflower flaxseed loaf from Tartine 3 in my bakery every day with great results. In fact, it is the easiest and stiffest dough we work with because of all the seeds. The ratio is 350g sunflower, 350g flax, 480g water. We let it sit until it soaks in and then mix it to the dough right away. We use tartine country loaf dough at 80% hydration.

I had decided to walk through the Tartine Bread book and make all the recipes.  It was fun till I tried this recipe.  I knew something was wrong when it said to add 4 cups of water to the flax seeds and then bring all that into the inclusion.  It just didn't seem right to be adding 4 cups of water as it dramatically throws off the water to flour ratios.  But I figured they knew what they were doing.  

In my opinion, the bread was inedible and primarily because it was very gummy as others have stated.  But, as you've probably read, some people liked it and others offered fixes (such as adding rolled oats or extra flower-which I tried by the way).  But, to my taste the bread was far to gummy.  

I understand that, on occasion there can be a mistake in a cookbook.  However, in this day and age of the internet, why doesn't Tartine have an errata page on their website?  This would have helped me and others not only on this recipe, but others as well.