In France over the summer, I became enamoured with the Banette Viking, a very dark seeded loaf that only seemed to be in the bakery occasionally. It turned out that they only baked them on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and even then only made around four. On the last Saturday, I bought all four, and brought some home with us, but they’re all gone now.

The Viking is clearly related to Scandinavian/Russian black breads. It’s obviously got Rye flour in it, as well as sunflower, sesame, linseed, and millet seeds. It also has something to give it that dark colour. Rye flour on its own is more grey than black/brown. A sniff revealed the presence of cocoa – and probably treacle. No wonder it was so delicious! Unlike most heavy rye breads, it had a light, airy sourdough-type texture, which might explain why it was only in the shop every couple of days.

When I have time, I’ll have a go at a two-day bake, but for my first attempt, I wanted to mix ingredients and go for flavour/colour before tackling the sourdough texture.

I mixed:

• 150g dark rye flour (Doves, I think, from Tesco)
• 250g white flour (I only had pizza flour in the house)
• 50g wholemeal bread flour
• 1 tsp vitamin C powder
• 3 tsp fast-action yeast (about 10g)
• 1 tbsp black treacle (or molasses)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt (added to the dough once already stretchy)
• 1 tsp Diax
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 40g softened butter
• 1-2 tbsp sunflower seeds (all I had available)
• 1-2 tbsp rolled oats
• 300 ml water

I let the mixer run for about 10 minutes, and adjusted the amount of flour slightly because it was a wet dough. Ideally, you’d add the water in stages.

I put it to rise in a warm place because I was in a hurry, and after an hour or so, knocked it back and shaped it into a loaf for a tin. I rolled it in oats before putting it into the oiled tin.

It rose quite well. Then I slashed the top and baked at 220°C for 30 minutes.

You can see the results above. It was actually pretty close to being the right colour, and tasted very close to the original (maybe I added a tad too much cocoa!). Just had a slice with a poached egg for breakfast. My next plan is to source some multi-seed flour from theflourbin and try it with that.