CHIA AND PUMPKIN SEED SOURDOUGH BREAD

Steps:

• Mixing and Bulk Fermentation
• This dough starts out feeling over-hydrated because the chia seeds are not soaked. As the chia seeds absorb water from the dough, it will feel dryer. Unless your dough continues to feel very wet, you should use wet fingers when stretching and folding the dough at the 30- and 60-minute marks. Also, soak the pumpkin seeds that you laminate into the dough at the 90-minute mark. If you plan to make this recipe no-knead and mix in all the ingredients unsoaked at once, consider adding 30 grams additional water to the dough.
• Place the pumpkin seeds in a glass with some water, cover, and set aside to soak. If the seeds are salted, rinse them a few times.
• Mix the rest of the ingredients in a medium bowl, cover, and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
• With wet fingertips, do two rounds of stretching and folding of the dough with a 30-minute rest in between.
• Drain the pumpkin seeds and clean off an 18"x18" stretch of countertop.
• Spread the dough thin on the counter and lay half the pumpkin seeds on half the dough, fold the dough over the seeds. Repeat the covering of half the dough with half the seeds, and folding until you have a square of dough about 6"x6". Return the dough to its bowl and cover.
• After the dough has rested 30 minutes, do one final round of stretching and folding.
• Let the dough finish bulk fermenting. It will not expand a great deal because of the large amount of seeds, but it will get webby inside. This could be 4-8 hours or longer.
• Final Proof
• With the extra seedy texture of this dough, lining up the gluten strands with a pre-shape and bench rest didn't seem very worthwhile, so I skipped those steps. However, if you find that your dough is a bit under-fermented when you scrape it out of the bowl, or if you're dividing a scaled-up dough into multiple loaves, feel free to do the pre-shape and bench rest.
• Scrape the dough out of your bowl onto a lightly floured countertop.
• Firmly de-gas the dough and shape it into a boule, batard, or oblong loaf (as I did).
• Place the shaped dough seam-side up in a floured banneton, cover, and let proof for several hours at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator. My dough was at room temperature for about 40 minutes before I retarded it overnight.
• Baking
• Preheat your baking vessel for 30 minutes at 500F.
• When the oven and dough are ready, flip the dough onto parchment paper, and score it.
• Load the dough into your baking vessel, cover, and bake:
• 20 minutes at 500F covered
• 10 minutes at 450F covered
• 5-10 minutes at 450F uncovered
• The internal temperature of the baked bread should be 205F or higher.
• Let it cool on a rack at least an hour before slicing.
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