North American Pumpernickel
I made these "North American" Style pumpernickels today. Wasn't thrilled with the outcome and definitely would like to tweak the recipe, but they are on its way. I'll post the recipe and my criticism and hopefully someone can point me in a direction.
I have 9" bread pans. I weighed the dough to 600 gram pieces, but I think I should have bumped it up to at least 900 for these pans.
Color:
Not as dark as I would have liked. I wanted like a nice dark black pumpernickel. (like the cheesecake factory)
Texture:
There is a decent amount of butter and lard in the recipe and the crumb is soft yet chewy. Its actually not too bad of a texture. I think I may have very slightly undercooked it because the crumb is a little dense as you chew it.
Crumb:
The crumb is very uneven. The bottom is dense and the top is a little too uneven. I don't make many loaf pan breads so I need some help here. I'm thinking it was underproofed or proofed too quickly? The loaves barely filly out the pans before they went in the oven but I proofed them for about 20 minutes longer than suggested because I didn't think they were quit there yet.
Flavor:
Not bad, but not perfect. It doesn't have a strong rye/pumpernickel flavor. I taste the lard and the coffee and they don't work particularly well together. The dough is sweet but not overly sweet and with all things considered the flavors are quite well balanced. I didn't use caraway because I didn't have any. I'm confident that using them would have changed the flavor quite drastically. I should have toasted some and put that in and maybe some extra on top. Next time I need to make sure I try them. Instead I used flax seed just for a little more nutrition.
Recipe:
Ingredient Amount in %
Bread Flour 60
Rye Flour 40
water 44
Coffee 20
Cocoa Powder 3.3 ( i used gadiva unsweetened)
Molasses 12
Sugar 4.4
Lard 17
Butter 5
Salt 2.4
Yeast 1
Levain 11
Caraway 1.3
I mixed the flours and liquids for about 5 minutes. Let them rest for 20 and then mixed for another 5 minutes. Added the sugar and molasses and mixed until incorporated, about 3 minutes. I added the lard and butter and mixed again until incorporated. that was another 3-5 minutes. The dough at this point was basically elastic and quite supple, albiet a little greasy. I added the flax seeds and folded several time to incorporate.
Bulk fermented for 2 hours with a fold halfway through. Shaped, bench rested, final shaped and proofed for about an hour and 20 minutes. (Hour was suggested but it was quite cool out today) Preheated to 450...added the bread and dropped it down to 400 and baked with steam.
Comments much appreciated. I'm very new to pumpernickel and would really like to find a great recipe.