090704 - Yippee's German Sourdough Rye 'Brick'
There must be a more proper name for this loaf, but it looks like a brick and feels like a brick, so I named it 'brick bread'. The idea came from a loaf I once tried out of curiosity. There was a night-and-day difference between that loaf and the fluffy, buttery Hong Kong /Japanese style breads I grew up with, but its texture was certainly interesting. I'd been contemplating making it but was not able to find a formula either here at the forum or online. Therefore, I decided to make it up myself after researching the basic properties of rye flour and using the ingredients on the package as a guideline.
My loaf consists of 60% rye flour, 40% high gluten whole wheat flour. The loaf I had was a yeasted formula and was made with far more variety of flours, seeds and grains but I decided to simplify the ingredients in my first trial. It has only walnuts, raisins and topped with sesame seeds.
I activated my dormant rye starter and put it to use. In order to test its vitality, no commercial yeast was used this time.
I arbitrarily picked an 88% hydration (to Cantonese, 88 is also a lucky number), hoping that this will soak up the pentosans and they wouldn't interfere with the gluten development as much. Even so, the dough was still sticky and a bit messy to handle. I made a sponge overnight and mixed with the rest of the flours the following day. A few attempts of stretch and folds didn't seem to lead to anything promising, so I gave up. I folded in the nuts and raisins at the end.
The dough rose to about 65% of its original height after a few hours, I wasn't sure whether it was ready but I surely didn't want to overproof, so I put it in a 460F oven for 40 minutes. Internal temperature measured 213F when it came out.
I waited 24 hours before slicing the bread and took pictures of the crumb at 48 hours as well. The tangy taste continues to improve as time goes by. It does not taste like brick and has not cracked my teeth. The nuts have created a light texture similar to that of banana bread, but without the fatty ingredients. It is a loaf I'll re-try, just to make it perfect. If you have a formula for something similar to this loaf, please kindly share it so that I won't be so clueless and have some directions to follow next time.
Here are the pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157621140385262/ [1]