squattercity's blog

rye in trying times

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a rye boule

Here's how to cure my depression: 45% whole rye, 10% whole spelt, 45% bread flour, 1% caraway, 1% salt.

I have to say, it was particularly tasty: nicely crisp and caramelized crust, wonderfully moist and light interior, just enough caraway to add zest without obscuring the flavor of the grains. My niece said it reminded her of bread her grandmother ate in rural Switzerland.

baked vegan wholewheat parsley & mint donuts w blood orange/plum brandy glaze

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a plate of vegan whole wheat donuts

another one from 'the "who kidnapped Rob?" cookbook.'

Adapted from Sarah Owens. I changed the recipe to whole wheat (basically because I wanted to use up some of what I have in my cabinet.) I subbed in violife faux-butter, soy milk, and a flax seed faux-egg for the animal equivalents.

Results:

a fun experiment, but -- 

1/2 way bread

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I read about Tony's Brotgewürz rye/wheat loaves & Ian's Onion Caraway Rye -- so, in a bout of cross-polinated insanity 🤣, I baked something you might categorize as halfway between the two.

It's got a chopped rye scald & a diastatic rye malt scald. I added a little lactose-free kefir (because it's what I had on hand) and 1% caraway.

final proportions (including the 2 scalds):

ryes on the prize?

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So, as some here may remember, I have had a variety of inconsistencies with my rye starter and my rye breads over the past year or so ... and, among the thoughts that the kind people on this site suggested was that I change up my routine and try some different rye flours. Though I'm not generally good at taking advice, I decided to have some fun with this. So I lined up 3 ryes: