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As you know, I love making bread and this blog is absolutely full of bread recipes! I particularly enjoy German bread, the bread I grew up with. The bread you get from German bakeries is simply the best – you just cannot beat it! Now that I live in the UK, I cannot get that bread anymore so I am on a mission to recreate some of my favourites! And this mixed seed and carrot bread, known as a “Muntermacher” at our local bakery is my first successful attempt!
What on earth does “Muntermacher” mean?!?!
I actually love the name of this bread: “Muntermacher”. The best translation I can come up with is the “Wake-you-upper”, i.e. the bread you eat in the morning to wake you up and get you up and going! Our local bakery sells the “Muntermacher” as a “Brötchen”, so a bread roll rather than a whole loaf of bread. But as I am very much into sourdough at the moment, I decided to try and recreate the flavours of the “Muntermacher” in a loaf rather than individual rolls. If you feel like it, however, you could also make individual bread rolls. Now that I have the recipe figured out, I might try that next time!
Here is a link to our local bakery (Bäckerei Rauen) – my absolute favourite! The best “Brötchen” they have in my opinion is the “Malzkracher” but I have yet to figure out how to make that myself… I´m working on it – so stay tuned for that!
The makings of a “Muntermacher” – A Mixed Seed and Carrot Bread
As you might have gathered from this post, the “Muntermacher” roll contains seeds and carrots. To make the bread dough, I used a combination of a whole wheat flour and strong white bread flour in a 2:1 ratio. I used 250g of my active sourdough starter (check out my recipe for making your own sourdough starter here) and a special seasoning mix known as “Brotgewürz” (bread seasoning) in Germany. It is a mix of ground cumin, star anise, fennel and coriander. See below on how to make your own.
For the seed component of this bread I use a mix of linseed, pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds which are the three seeds found on the “real” Muntermacher bread. You can use a pre-made mix of these seeds (most shop-bought bags of mixed seeds contain at least three types of seeds) or buy them separately and create your own mix of those three types of seeds.
The final key ingredient in this bread are grated carrot. A bit like in carrot cake (speaking of which, check out my spiced carrot cake and carrot cake traybake recipes!), you don´t really taste the carrot too much, but it adds some colour and a little something different to the bread! Definitely worth a try if you haven´t had it before!
Additional Recipes and Essential Equipment for Making this Bread
How to make a sourdough starter: Making your own sourdough starter is extremely easy! It takes about a week to get it to a stage where it is bubbly, active and ready to use. After that, you can keep it in the fridge and use it for making amazing sourdough bread for the rest of your life! Check out the recipe here.
How to make bread seasoning (“Brotgewürz”): To make your own bread seasoning, mix together 2 tbsp each of ground cumin, star anise, fennel and coriander. Use a teaspoon in the recipe below and store the rest in a jar for next time.
in a round banneton.
Essential Equipment: For the best results, it´s best to leave the dough in a proofing banneton for its second proof. For my recipes, a banneton that holds 500g of dough is perfect! I use this one here. Just remember to flour it well so that your bread dough doesn’t stick! To slash the bread dough, you need to use a very sharp knife or a bread lane. Or you can use a different sharp blade, these super cheap throwaway stanley knives are what I use and I think they work really well!
More Bread Recipes
I have loads more bread recipes on my blog, check out some of my favourites below:
- Crusty Sourdough Loaf
- Rye Sourdough Bread
- 3-Day Crusty French Baguettes
- Italian Rosemary Focaccia Bread
- Wholemeal Seeded Bread | German Baking Classic
- Caramelised Red Onion and Balsamic Soda Bread
- French Olive Baguettes (Pain d´Olives)
- Small(er) Pesto Star Bread
- Tomato and Mozzarella Focaccia Bread
Muntermacher“ | Mixed Seed and Carrot Bread | German Bread
Recipe
Ingredients:
- 250g active sourdough starter (find a recipe here)
- 250g wholemeal flour
- 125g strong white bread flour
- 12g salt
- 1 tsp “Brotgewürz”/bread seasoning, see recipe above
- 180g lukewarm water
- A little olive oil
- 30g sunflower seeds
- 30g pumpkin seeds
- 20g sesame seeds
- 20g linseeds -> or use 80-100g of a pre-made mixed seed mix
- 100g carrots, grated and patted dry
YOU WILL ALSO NEED:
Method:
- Start by making the bread dough. Combine the active sourdough starter, two types of flour, salt, bread seasoning and water in a large bowl. Mix the ingredients together with your hands (or a spoon) until they start to come together into a rough dough.
- Lightly oil your work surface and turn the dough out. Knead the dough for 5-15 minutes, until the dough is smooth, stretchy and passes the windowpane test.
- Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl (you can use the same one as before) and cover with clingfilm. Leave the dough to prove for about 4-5 hours at room temperature.
- In the meantime, you can prepare your seed mix and peel and grate the carrots. Pat the carrots dry using kitchen towel and leave them out at room temperature to dry them out a little more before you add them to the dough.
- After the first prove, turn out the dough onto your work surface and knock out some of the air. Then take about ¾ of the mixed seeds and work them into the dough alongside the grated carrots until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
- Shape the dough into a round loaf and spray the top with water (or lightly wet your hands and rub them over the dough). Sprinkle the remaining seeds onto your work surface and roll the wet side of the dough in the seeds to stick them to the top of the bread.
- Place the bread seed-side down into a well-floured round banneton (I used a banneton for a 500g loaf and floured it with wholemeal flour).
- Leave the dough to prove in the fridge, uncovered for 8-10 hours (ideally overnight).
- Preheat the oven to 230°C and place a small roasting tin in the bottom of the oven. In the meantime, boil the kettle and line a baking sheet with some baking paper.
- Once preheated, turn the proofing banneton upside down onto the baking tray to release the bread onto the tray. Use a sharp knife, bread lame or razor blade, to slash the bread two or three times across the top, about 1 cm deep.
- Immediately slide the baking tray into the oven. Before you close the door, pour some boiling water into the roasting tray at the bottom of the oven to create a burst of steam.
- Bake the mixed seed and carrot bread in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 200°C and bake for a further 25-30 minutes until golden brown and the bread sounds hollow when tapped from below.
- Leave the bread on a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.
