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pmccool's picture
pmccool

While it would be self-deception in the first degree to think that I have a lock on wheaten breads, I've been wanting to expand my repertoire to include breads with a high percentage of rye flour.  I enjoy the flavor and have been very impressed by the breads produced by other TFL posters.  So, I thought I'd try my hand with the Soulful German Farmhouse Rye from Daniel Leader's Local Breads.  This bread has been profiled in other posts on TFL, so feel free to search out those entries, too.

I maintain a single sourdough starter that is usually fed AP or bread flour.  Every now and then it gets goosed with a bit of whole rye or whole wheat, based on the needs of a particular recipe.  For this bread, I did two refreshments entirely with whole rye flour to build the rye sour it calls for.  About the only rye flour carried in supermarkets locally is Hodgson Mills whole rye, so it's not like there's a lot of choice in the matter.  Whole Foods and Wild Oats stores have some other possibilities, but the labeling doesn't always make it clear just what they are selling.

The formula calls for a quarter teaspoon each of coriander, fennel and cumin seeds, toasted and ground.  That turned out to be my first point of departure from the formula.  Recalling some earlier discussions on TFL, I substituted caraway for the cumin.  My first attempt at toasting the seeds in a skillet on the stovetop was, well, overdone.  As I was grinding the seeds, the predominant odor was that of something scorched, not something spicy.  After pitching those, I started over.  This time I dialed back the heat and shook the skillet every few seconds so that nothing had a chance to park on a hot spot and scorch.  I also kept a close eye on the fennel seeds.  They started out with a greenish cast, while the coriander and caraway already had a toasty color.  When the fennel seeds' color shifted from green to golden, I pulled the skillet off the flame and dumped the seeds into the mortar.  A few strokes with the pestle released a toasty/spicy fragrance that was much different and far better than the that of the first attempt.  

Despite Leader's recommendations, I opted for hand mixing and kneading the dough, primarily to understand how it looked and felt as it developed.  Now I know why the phrase "wet cement" figures prominently in writings about making rye breads.  Despite what you read in recipes, a high-percentage rye dough will not be silky; nor will it be elastic or responsive.  I'll probably use the mixer for future forays, but I know now what to look for.  The other departure from the formula was to use wet hands and a wet countertop for kneading.  Leader recommends floured hands, but I think that working wet has to be the better choice.  First, you can't work in too much additional flour.  Second, the same components in rye flour that make it so sticky also make it slippery when wet.  That means your hands don't get nearly as gummed up with dough as they would if you worked with floured surfaces.  Keeping a plastic bowl scraper in one hand while manipulating the dough with the other is also a good tactic.  

The dough came together rather easily.  Yes, it was sticky.  Yes, it was sludgy.  And no, it didn't seem the least bit soulful; at least, not compared to a dough made with wheat flour.  The second point at which I departed from the script was to add only half the amount of yeast.  A significant quantity of the rye flour is in the final dough, so I wanted it to have the opportunity to acidify before the yeast took over.  That stretched the fermentation times out beyond the times noted in the formula but I wasn't in any rush.

Leader recommends "dusting" the bannetons with rye flakes before depositing the boules for their final fermentation.  First, things the size of rye flakes can't be "dusted" onto anything, much less the sidewalls of a banneton.  Second, he recommends slashing the loaves with a tic-tac-toe pattern immediately before loading them in the oven.  Every try slashing a dough that is armored, sorry, "dusted" with rye flakes?  It ain't gonna happen, no matter what your slashing weapon of choice is.  (See picture, below.)  And that for a bread that, he says truthfully, isn't going to rise much in the oven.  I'll grant you that the rye flakes have a certain rustic appeal for the eye, but next time I'd rather use them as a soaker or leave them off entirely.

Here's how the finished breads look:

Soulful German Farmhouse Rye

These are compact breads, maybe 1.5 inches high and 7 or 8 inches across.  The rye flakes and the knife handle give you a sense of their scale.  The crumb, not surprisingly, is dense and rather tight.  The soulful part, which isn't appreciable here, is in the flavor.  The rye is front and center in this bread.  The spices, while discernible, are very much in a supporting role.  It's quite a bit different than Levy's NY jewish rye, which has 2 tablespoons of caraway seeds.  The crust is chewy, as is the crumb.  Then again, it's been in a plastic bag overnight.  Left out in the air, it would probably be rather hard-shelled.  It doesn't feel quite as moist as I had anticipated (probably a factor of the whole rye's absorbency) but it isn't crumbly, either.  I think it is probably a very good thing that I used water, rather than flour, to manage the stickiness while kneading the dough.  There's no noticeable gumminess in the crumb, so it appears that I waited long enough before cutting into it. 

All in all, an enjoyable bread and one that should go very well with the ham I purchased this weekend.

blackbird's picture
blackbird

After reading in Reinhart's WGB pages 205-209, I made up my mind to give it a try.  I discovered my very nearby microbrewery gives away their spent grain so I dropped by to gather up a few plastic containers of rather warm steaming fresh spent barley grain.  Using white bread flour, a little rye, salt, instant yeast, water, and caraway seeds, I made a free standing loaf.  I'm not good at free standing loaves despite some years of baking -------not that I was baking in great amounts-----but ever so rarely in free standing loaves.

Next time I'll use whole wheat and try to follow the book more closely.   I'll try to make progress in scoring while I'm at it.  My new round banneton will get much use. 

Jw's picture
Jw

this weekend I researched the strenght and taste of my wild yeast. I made one starter with wild yeast (pure), one with an extra half a teaspone of commercial yeast, and the third with some sourdough powder I once bought. Also, in the oven I covered half of the breads with a alu-foil pain for the first 15 minutes.

Conclusion: the wild yeast is not that strong yet, a few spots  in that bread were not completely developed. The alu-foil really helps. Those breads looks nice and have a better crust. Adding a bit of commercial gets me better results (or I need to proof longer next time). You don't see much difference during the whole proces, it's all happening once you hit the oven.
About the picture: top row is with cover, from left to right: wild yeast only, added commercial yeast, added sourdough powder. The one in the bottom row in the middle rose twice the size in the oven, but is was 'all air' wiithin.

Crumb: the one is the middle is the wild yeast only version. This was around lunch today, baking was yesterday 5 p.m.



I thought I'd add a few others pictures this time as well. Not just from the bread itself, but also how we eat it. These are heart-breads, just pain ancienne, with a bit of wild yeast (for the taste) and extra seads. great to receive or take to school..or to eat with raspberry marmalade.

this picture shows part of the lunch table from yesterday. the yellow light comes from the sun roof. just 'lazy bread', bacon and some fish.

,

last but not least: I made a few extra zopf last thursday for colleages at work. Six-strand breading is getting better (bottom right). I used standard flour and not the special zopf flour.

Happy baking! (just had to take a bread out of the fridge, we ate all bread already..)

Cheers,
Jw.

AnnieT's picture
AnnieT

The loaf is baked and to be truthful I can't see any difference - I was expecting the beer to have some effect and maybe the flour. The loaf slid partway off the parchment as I was loading it so I retrieved the parchment to use another day. The loaf did sing a muted song which was nice. So I am happy with the Bob's Red Mill flour - but won't add beer in future. I'm taking it for supper with the family and will try to get a shot of the crumb, A.

benjamin's picture
benjamin

I attempted David's sourdough adaptation of the anis bouabsa baguette... IMG_1777.JPGIMG_1778.JPGIMG_1783.JPG

The crumb was beautifully soft, and this was by far the crustiest baguette I have ever made. The dough is a little hard to work with due to the high hydration, and scoring is particularly challenging! It was well worth it though, and I will definately be making these again!

 

Happy baking

ben

benjamin's picture
benjamin

I have made soft pretzels in the past, and have always enjoyed them, however I have always wanted to make a sourdough version. After much internet research, I did not come across any recipes that called out to me, so I decided to do my own. I adapted a Bertinet recipe, simply replacing fermented white dough in the recipe with an equal quantity of firm sourdough starter. I also retarded the dough in the fridge over night... though this was more to do with the fact that I wanted to bake them fresh the next morning rather than anything else.

IMG_1753.JPGIMG_1768.JPG

All in all I was really pleased with the result. The inside was very soft and authentic. I didn't bother with either a lye bath, or boiling the pretzels prior to baking. I plan to try boiling the next time I make these, but the lye bath seems a little to much trouble.

By the way, I will be happy to post the whole recipe if anyone is interested.

 

happy baking

ben

hansjoakim's picture
hansjoakim

I made two loaves this week: The first was a take on the "Pain au levain with whole wheat flour" from Hamelman's book. Although I've had the book on my shelf for just over a year, I hadn't tried any of his pain au levains before. The time was overripe (like a "bubbly, collapsed poolish"-overripe). To make things a bit more interesting, I replaced half of the bread flour with spelt, and added a liberal amount of wheat bran to the recipe. I guess this detracted a bit from the potential loaf volume, but added to its nutritional value and the flavour.

Pain au Levain

Cutting loaves successfully is something of the hardest of the whole bread baking process if you ask me... Since this is a pretty light loaf (only 20% whole wheat and 5% rye), I opted for the classic baguette cut. Not very symmetrical or anything, but a nice bloom on the first cut at least. "The first cut is the deepest", that's a song, isn't it?

Pain au Levain

Below is a photo of the crumb - pretty homogeneous crumb with no large pockets, but that's usually the way loaves turn out at my place. To be honest, I prefer a more even crumb too. I was very happy with the profile of the loaf, especially since there's quite a bit of spelt in there. The photo doesn't show it, but the crumb is also specked with wheat bran. Yum!

Pain au Levain

I really enjoyed making this pain au levain from "Bread", and I was amazed by how quickly it all came together. That's what you get from working mainly with rye doughs, I guess :-)

The flavour is very clean, wholesome wheat and the crust has a brilliant crunch to it. The crumb is also very soft, and this loaf goes well with both fish, meat and cheese.

 

The second loaf I made was a Leinsamenbrot - a rye loaf stuffed with flax seed. This is approximately 66% rye, so it's a pretty filling bread. I'm getting more and more into making hearty rye loaves with my firm white starter (50% hydration), and I wonder how much further the rye content can be increased without getting those large holes from the dreaded starch attack during baking. For this loaf, approx. 15% of the total flour comes from the starter, the final dough is quite high in hydration (77-78% I guess), and there's only a small speck of yeast in it (about 0.3% fresh yeast). I let it bulk ferment for roughly 2 hours and final proof 1hr 15 mins. I've found this procedure to result in nice, open crumbs and a pleasant rye flavour. If you're after a really sour rye, you'll probably have to opt for a rye starter as well!

Flax rye

 

I also promised desert! I found some tempting pears at the store the other day, and decided to have a go at a pear tart. I used a sweet tart dough (pâte sucrée), a frangipane filling and sprinkled the poached pears with cinnamon and sugar. Some chopped almonds and powdered sugar in between the pears. I had no idea how much frangipane to put in the tart - I was hungry and running a bit late, so I think I scooped a bit much into it, but fortunately it didn't spill over the edge...

Pear frangipane tart

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

Pugliese Loaves with Duram Flour from RLBeranbaum's

' the bread bible' This is my first time making this bread, crunchy crust with a nice chew to it and a great crumb flavor that only gets better on tonite's panini's..also a great dipping bread.  I love the color of the loaves and crumb from the Duram flour.  The dough is very similar to working with a wet pizza dough.  I did score with a # slash!  I had a nice oven spring.  I 3 X's the recipe and got 2 nice loaves a 1 1/2 lb and 1 lb loaf..we just about finished off the 1 lb.  the bread is light and disappears fast!  I did all the mixing by hand and used a 24 hour biga.  I'll be making this loaf again...I was very happy with the results.

Thanks to Floyd here's some photo's!  Thank you Floyd!

This is being added as one of my favorite Italian Breads!

Sylvia

blackbird's picture
blackbird

An old favorite for over 30 years, walnut cinnamon lemon bread is simple, crunchy and chewy.  The basic recipe is flexible rather than perfectionist.  I used frozen orange juice, thawed and room tmperature, back in those days. 

3 cups AP flour

instant yeast perhaps a big pinch

pinch of salt

1 maybe 2 ounces oil

8-9 ounces water

cinnamon as you like, I like it so I may use more than you

walnut pieces as you like, say 3/4 cup

lemon by lemon extract or lemon juice and or zest to your taste ----or you can use orange instead

No sugar or sweetening needed.

Mix all well, you can do some kneading at this mixing time.  I knead in the bowl with my mixing plastic spoon giving 5 minutes or so between a few spoon kneading efforts.

Let rise to double or so, then divide to fit pans, up to three mini pans, kneading is minimal or not at all.   The dough will be a bit wet and clay-like.  I use wet hands to handle it.   Or one big bread loaf pan. 

 Let rise, then into preheated oven at 425F, no steam, cover with alum foil loosely, decrease heat after 20 min to 375F, remove foil.  Baking time depends on your oven and how many times you open the oven.  Say 30 minutes total.  Let cool, or eat warm if it suits you.  Previously I wrote 45 minutes but my mind was thinking of a big bread pan loaf which requires a bit more time.  It is good to check on it so it does not get too dry. 

The simple recipe can be changed by adding eggs when mixing the dough for example. 

I tried a mold but got plenty of spring so it leans.

 

AnnieT's picture
AnnieT

I know that it isn't a good idea to change more than one thing at a time, but hey, the sun is shining and I feel daring! I stood in front of the Bob's Red Mill display yesterday and for the first time noticed a 5# bag of unbleached white flour which is "Superb for bread making by hand or machine". Also supposed to be high protein. So I took back my usual KA bread flour and bought the BRM - after all it was only $3.79 as opposed to $5.  As I was mixing the water and starter for Susan's Famous Sourdough this morning I had an idea to sub in a little of the cheap beer I used last week for the Almost No Knead bread. Plus a small amount of rye, so I guess that was three changes. The dough seems fine and just has one more stretch and fold to go before proofing. I have tomato seedlings sitting on top of the propane stove, my usual proofing place, so it could be slow going. Has anyone had good or bad results with this flour that they would like to share? Hoping I won't regret penny pinching, A.

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