For my weekly lunch bread I have been stuck in a bit of a rut lately, alternating between Rose Levy's Real Jewish Rye and Classic Pumpernickel. I would like to find something different but the problem since I depend on that loaf for sandwiches I have to be reasonably certain it will turn out well. Which of course Rose's recipes do if you follow them to the gram.

So I have been modifying the recipes just a little to get some variation. 1/2 tsp of cardamom powder in the sponge for the rye didn't make much difference; 2 tsp was quite noticable! And so on.

This Sunday I made the pumpernickel and decided to add a bit of cardamom. The loaf came out well [1]. I sliced the end off as usual to try it out. It was quite good but the flavour was a lot stronger than I had expected from 1/2 tsp of cardamom.

Well, this morning I was looking at the spice rack and I realized that not only was the jar of cumin seed right next to the jar of caraway seed, its level was much lower than I would have expected. A quick sniff of the jar and the end of the loaf confirmed my suspicion: I had made a cumin-cardamom bread rather than caraway-cardamom. My spouse was laughing at me as I figured this out.

Cumin-cardamom pumpernickel: not bad actually, although I am not sure I would make it on purpose.

sPh

[2] Until I got to the middle and found a huge hole where the dough had failed to adhere after shaping ;-( And I thought I was using excessive force to get that one shaped.