The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Ideas for making Danish Rye Bread have a very dark crumb?

richkaimd's picture
richkaimd

Ideas for making Danish Rye Bread have a very dark crumb?

I make a very passable Danish Rye Bread.  Everyone who has tasted it thinks it's just ducky.  But those who have eaten it in Scandinavia have asked why mine's so light.  They think of it as a having a much darker crumb.  If you've succeeded in making it really dark, how'd'ja do it?

 

 

BGM's picture
BGM

Commercial bakeries sometime use caramel coloring. Home bakers often add coffee or chocolate.  Of course there are also some very dark rye flours, labeled Pumpernickel.

lepainSamidien's picture
lepainSamidien

We would need to know your recipe, if we were to be able to tell you why it wasn't dark enough.

For me, I just use 100% dark rye flour, and I don't think anyone could complain of its being too light. It's a difficult dough to work with, but it produces an almost impossibly aromatic, complex, richly dark bread.

richkaimd's picture
richkaimd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7eLOtMzaGI

As I've said previously, my only complaint about this bread is that I don't know how to make as dark as I've seen in the past and as my customer's would like.  Otherwise, it's just great!

I'll be trying to darken it with espresso powder, cocoa powder and Kitchen Bouquet.  It don't yet know where to get a product that would add a dark caramel color.  Does anyone out there know?

Thanks for the help, friends.  I love it.

 

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

almost black, rye using some double Chocolate malt she got a a brew shop.  There are all kinds of various shades of malt available.  I have used home made red rye malt, dark beers, espresso powder, instant coffee, cocoa, toasted whole berries for 10% of the flour, scalds to progressively darker colors, molasses and barley malt syrup to darken up the crumb and add flavor to all kinds of breads,

Happy baking   

fotomat1's picture
fotomat1

or 2 3/4 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder for the average 2lb loaf