Tartine Danish Rye
After a long absence it was time to get back to baking. My starter stoically withstood the deep chill of neglect in my fridge and as is always a surprise to me came back to life with great vigour after a few feedings. I liked the look of Tartine's Danish Rye and gave it a try. Dark seeded rye breads have always intrigued me. The recipe called for sprouted rye kernels but my lack of good timing and impatience had me use them just after a single night's full soak rather than fully sprouted. The other difference from the recipe was that it calls for buttermilk and dark ale, and I replaced the buttermilk with more dark ale - I used Guinness. I also had a hard time finding a dark malt syrup at the grocery store and ended up going to a home beer making supply store and bought some there. I baked them this morning and cut into them tonight. Wow.
All wet ingredients..
A bowl full of seeds..
When combined it was pretty wet and liquid. Within an hour it began to "set" as the seeds started to absorb the liquid. The recipe calls for several stretch and folds. That's not possible with this dough as it's too wet. And as we're not after gluten development I think it was more just to help all the liquid get absorbed.
Over three hours I mixed the dough three times and kept the dough warm in a proof box at 83 degrees. Then they went into the pans for another hour at 73 degrees. I then covered them with a dish town and placed them in the fridge for the night.
In the morning I baked them for about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get the loaves to an internal temp of 208 degrees.
In the picture above you can see the loaf top looks a bit pale. As called for in the recipe I brushed the loaves with a bit of water before placing them in the oven - maybe I didn't brush them enough? I'm not sure how to fix that.
I'm very happy with the bread! It's moist but not wet. It has a great firm mouth feel but isn't hard to chew.
I have two questions if anyone knows:
#1 how do I get a nicer looking top crust? and;
#2 I didn't use it but what's the purpose of using buttermilk in a recipe like this?
Thanks - frank!