Pain aux noix: Walnut bread, My new delicious bread !

Last month, my dad took a Chinese medicine (the one that you have to boil it in the pot) and after the doctor he said that my dad couldn't eat egg when he take the medicine. The daily bread that my dad eats every morning is made by me ^^, so I had to find new recipe to make.

 And you know that for me finding new recipe is not hard, but the problem is "Is it good?". So for me it's time to try new recipe too and I find this book on my shelf ................I bought it a year before, and still keeping it in the shelf, hehe.
Actually I bought it because my friend said that the recipe in this book is very good, well, I believe in my friend's word, ^^. So this recipe is the first one that I will try, and the problem that I usually have when making the bread without adding the butter, oil or egg is it will be as hard as rock or the crust of the bread can be so tough.
But I was wrong!, the bread comes out so beautiful and fragrance, I really love it, the bread is not too chewy or tough and it will be crunchy when lightly toasted, "Great".
I think the key ingredient is rye flour, that has less gluten than bread flour and it act as a softener. So even the bread has no oil added, the texture of the bread is not tough. 
The first time that I made this bread, I didn't use to the firm dough so I added more water, but this time I try to knead it with the given amount of water, I find the texture is better. 
You can lightly toasted the slice of this bread and spread with butter, ^^ very good, haha. But even without the butter or anything else the bread still good on its own because the bread is packed with a lot of walnut, so with each bite you will get both soft, chewy texture and crunchiness of the nuts. Try it! and I know that you will love it as much as I do.

Pain aux noix: Walnut bread 

Makes 1 loaf

1½ tsp ............................ Instant dried yeast (or 2tsp active dried yeast)
350ml ............................. Water
250g ............................... Bread flour
125g ................................ Rye flour
125g ................................ Whole wheat flour
2tsp ................................. Fine sea salt
150g ................................ Walnut halves, roughly chopped

Mix the flours and the salt together.
Sprinkle the yeast into 100ml of the water. Leave for 5 minutes; stir to dissolve. 

Make a well in a center of the flour bowl, and pour in the yeasted water. 
Use a spatula to draw enough of the flour into the yeasted water to form a thick paste. 
Cover the bowl with a tea towel, then leave to "sponge" until frothy and risen, about 20 minutes.

Pour the remaining water, and holding back about the half, into the well. Mix in the flour. Stir in the reserved water, as needed, to form a firm, moist dough (the dough is on a firm side ^^).
Turn out onto a work surface. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.

Add walnut at the end of kneading.

Put the dough in a clean bowl and cover with tea towel. Leave to rise until double in size, about 1½ -2 hours. 
Take the dough out of the bowl, press the air out of the dough and leave to rest for 10minutes.

Shape the dough into a long loaf, about 25cm in length. Place the shaped dough on a baking sheet and cover with tea towel. 
Preheat the oven to 200 °C
Prove until doubled in size, about 45 minutes - 1 hour.
Bake in the oven for  45 minutes - 1 hour until the loaf is hollow- sounding when tapped underneath. Cool on a wire rack.

Pain aux noix: Walnut bread, 

My new delicious bread !