Just An Ordinary Girl

Here are the ingredients that you will need to make this bread:

- 250g all purpose flour / bread flour
- 3.75g active dry yeast
- 15g sugar
- 3g salt
-160 ml water
- 1 tbsp oil
- 40g seeds (I am using sunflower seeds and walnuts. But you can use any seeds you like)

2. Warm the milk

Pour the milk into a pot and warm it over low heat to 40ºC. The milk should feel warm but not hot or boiling. It will kill the yeast if the milk is too hot.

3. Activate the yeast
Stir in the sugar rapidly into the milk until it dissolve. Sprinkle the yeast onto the liquid to activate  the yeast. This is to test and make sure the yeast is alive and active. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes until the yeast starts to foam. The yeast is active if this happens and the solution will smell yeasty.

4. Combine the ingredients
In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast solution, oil and salt.

5. Mix the ingredients
Gently mix the ingredients together with a pair of chopsticks or wooden spoon.

6. Shape the dough

Once the ingredients stop combining, quickly shape dough into a ball with your hand.

7. Add in seeds mixture


Gently knead and work the seeds into the dough until well combined.

9. Store overnight in fridge

I usually make the dough around 9.00 to 10.00 pm at night. Making the dough only takes about 5 to 10 minutes. After the dough is made, put it in a sealed container and let it rest in room temperature for about 45 minutes before letting it sit overnight in the fridge for at least 12 to 24 hours.

10. Shape the dough the next day
The dough is cold and feels hard when you pull it out from the fridge the next day. Allow it to continue to rise in room temperature for at least an hour, or until it has warmed up enough that you can shape it. I usually submerge the container into a warm water bath to speed up the process.

At this stage, the dough should smell pleasantly sour with a slightly yeasty smell. It actually smell a little like alcohol too. This is because during fermentation, yeast and bacteria within the dough will feed off the sugars in the flour, producing carbon dioxide, alcohol and acids, which helps to develop distinctive flavour within the bread. But don't worry. The alcohol will evaporate after you bake the dough.

After the dough has warmed up, shape it to whatever shape you like and let it rest for 30 minutes. Once you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 190ºC and bake it for 15 minutes.

11. Ready to bake

The resulting loaf is super crusty on the outside but deliciously moist and soft inside. Give the bread a knock and it should sound hollow. This would also mean that your bread is done baking.

The crust become soft once the bread has cooled down completely. If you are not a fan of bread with a hard crust, you might want to eat this after it cooled down. You might also want to use bread flour instead of all purpose flour if you prefer a thinner crust.


Sunflower seeds and walnuts also add a great texture and nutty sweetness to the bread. But unfortunately, the bread tend to get a little dry if you eat it the next day. If you find it too dry to eat, you can try heating it up in the microwave. All you need is just 1 minute and the bread will come out moist again.