Recipes · Wholemeal wheat and rye
Sepik
The in-between loaf: lighter than leib, darker than sai, and the one children ask for.
- Makes
- 1 oval loaf, or 1 tin
- Hands-on
- About 30 minutes
- Start to finish
- About 3½ hours
- Oven
- 220 °C, then 200 °C
Estonian has a word for the bread that sits between leib and sai. Older recipes made sepik from barley or coarse wheat flour; the sepik on a shop shelf today is usually a wholemeal wheat loaf, often with a little rye in it. Mine is close to that, with a spoonful of rye starter for flavour.
Unlike rye, this dough is kneaded. Wheat has the gluten that rye lacks, and ten minutes of kneading turns a shaggy mess into something smooth and stretchy that can hold the shape of a free-standing loaf.
Method
- Mix the flours, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Stir the starter and honey into the water, pour it in and mix until there is no dry flour left. Leave it for 15 minutes.
- Add the butter and knead for about 10 minutes on a lightly floured table, until the dough is smooth and springs back slowly when pressed. Wholemeal dough stays a little tacky; resist adding much more flour.
- Cover and leave to rise at room temperature for 1–1½ hours, until roughly doubled.
- Press out the air and shape a tight oval, or roll it into a log for a tin. Roll the top in seeds if you like. Put it on a floured tray or in a greased tin and leave it to rise again for 40–60 minutes.
- Heat the oven to 220 °C. Cut one long slash along the top, put the loaf in and pour a small cup of water onto a hot tray at the bottom of the oven for steam.
- After 10 minutes turn the oven down to 200 °C and bake for another 25–30 minutes, until deep brown and hollow-sounding underneath. Cool on a rack for at least an hour before cutting.
Notes
- Sepik is the bread for a slow weekend breakfast: butter, cheese, perhaps smoked fish. It does not keep as long as leib, but after two days it makes very good toast.
- For a lighter loaf, swap 100 g of the wholemeal for white flour. For a more rustic one add more rye, but keep it under a third of the flour or the loaf will spread.