Seeded Rye Loaf

Whisk the rye flour, white flour, yeast and fine salt together in a large bowl.

Stir the treacle into the lukewarm water until it has dissolved.

Pour the liquid into the flours and mix with a wooden spoon until no dry flour is left.

Expect a sticky, heavy dough closer to a thick paste than to a bread dough. Rye holds far more water than wheat, and the stickiness is not a sign that it wants more flour.

Stir in the 60g of mixed seeds and the crushed caraway with about ten turns of the spoon.

Stop there. Rye carries very little of the protein that forms gluten, so this dough will never turn smooth and elastic and it will never pass the windowpane test a wheat dough is judged on, where a stretched corner goes thin enough to see light through before it tears.

Do not knead it the way the everyday white tin loaf in this collection is kneaded. There is no gluten network to build here, and prolonged handling only breaks down what structure the dough does have, which gives a flat loaf that spreads sideways on the tray.

Note that the no-knead sourdough focaccia in this collection is also left largely unworked, though for the opposite reason: there the folds build a gluten network slowly, where rye has almost none to build.

Cover the bowl and prove at room temperature for about 1.5 hours, until the dough has risen by half and the surface is pitted with bubbles. Rye does not double.

Scrape the dough onto a well-floured worktop.

Shape it into an oval about 25cm long with floured hands, using four or five movements and no more.

Lift it onto a lined baking tray.

Brush the top and sides with the tablespoon of water.

Scatter over the 20g of seeds for the crust and press them lightly into the surface.

Cover and prove for 45-60 minutes, until fine cracks have opened across the surface. That crazing is the cue rye gives that it is ready, in place of the slowly filling dent of a wheat dough.

Heat the oven to 220C/425F once the second prove is halfway through.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Turn the oven down to 190C/375F.

Bake for a further 30-35 minutes, until the crust is dark and hard and the base sounds hollow when you knock it.

Check the centre with a thermometer if you have one: 95C/203F, a few degrees higher than a wheat loaf needs.

Cool on a rack for at least 4 hours, and overnight if you can leave it.

Do not cut into it warm. Rye starch sets far more slowly as it cools than wheat starch does, and a loaf opened while the crumb is still warm smears into a gummy paste under the knife and stays that way.

Cut thin slices with a serrated knife, sawing rather than pressing.

Store it cut-side down on a board for up to five days. The flavour is rounder on the second day than on the first.