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80 percent Sourdough Rye with a Rye-Flour Soaker

Baked 22nd August 2024.

This is first time baking this recipe. I do not usually bake rye breads, so I did as much reading on what to expect and handle the rye as possible leading up to this attempt. I stone-milled the rye berries the day before so they would be as fresh as possible and have an abundance of microbes. My firm whole-rye culture as fully active when preparing the sourdough stage overnight for 14 hours. The hot rye-flour soaker was prepared at the same time.

I just baked this today and I think it is my favourite pan bread that I’ve made so far.  I absolutely love the crumb, nicely open for a pan loaf.  The flavour from the toasted walnuts, toasted sesame seed oil, touch of honey and the 20% whole spelt are just fabulous.  There is a mild tang since I did not use a stiff sweet levain to suppress the acidity, but instead used a regular stiff levain.  This bread is so soft yet the crust is pretty thin and crisp.

I’m working on improving my spelt baguettes by slowly increasing the hydration 1% at a time trying not to overshoot and have a disaster LOL.  At only 9% of the total flour, whole spelt should give some good whole grain flavour while also helping the dough’s extensibility.  Also this should help achieve an open crumb which is quite desirable for baguettes.  I don’t think I’m quite there yet with this bake.  I also had some trouble releasing one of the baguettes from the couche causing some degassing.

I’m am behind on my posting here.  I baked this loaf a while back and it is already gone.  I recently found ground black sesame seeds at a local Asian market, this saves me the trouble of grinding the seeds myself.  I love adding the ground seeds to the dough as it gives the crumb a lovely grayish colour and a great black sesame flavour to the bread.  If you cannot find already ground black sesame seeds, then I would use my coffee grinder to grind the seeds.  You’ll just need to clean the grinder before and after use.

I want to pose a number of questions that I hope will stir up some discussion.  I have ideas about some of them but no real facts.  Here's the first.

I have measured the volume of a starter as it rose after feeding.  I've done this several times with various starters and a poolish. The general pattern was the same.  The starter would, after a delay, start rising and build up to a roughly constant rate, then start to taper off.

Today's bake: Laminated Honey Rye

Source: Living Bread by Daniel Leader

Notes: Doubled original recipe of TDW 1.055kg.

Substitutions:  AP flour for Type 55, Used plant-based butter.

I’ve been making our favourite sourdough weekly for years and have not varied the process at all (don’t fix something that’s not broken). Same flours, same temperatures, same hydration, same process and same kneading technique, which is hand stretch and folds for 15 minutes, quite an effort towards the end. Recently, I broke four ribs and punctured a lung and therefore haven’t baked in four weeks. With the help of painkillers, I got back into the kitchen today. While convalescing I read that I can achieve good dough strength by kneading for 5 minutes and then rest for 15 minutes.

I've had Daniel Leader's Living Bread book for a couple of years now but have baked scarcely any (one?) of the breads that it features.  One reason for not having dived into it enthusiastically is that I am, admittedly, a rather pedestrian baker whereas many of the breads in the book exemplify a high degree of the baker's craft.  Another reason is that some of the breads are in the "That's cool but it isn't what I want" category.  And, a number of the breads call for ingredients that, here in northern Michigan, range between exotic and Unobtanium.  Since I'm cheap

Hi friends!

Last time, I shared how I bake lean bread in my beloved Walmart toaster oven. Today, I will show you how I use it to bake enriched bread. The loaves you see are sesame milk bread, made with 60% milk, 8% butter, and 8% sugar. I bake them "naked" — without the graniteware roaster — in a black tin and a light-colored tin, respectively. Each dough weighs around 500g for the 9x4x4 tin.

Here’s my process: