June 27, 2005 - 9:25am
Real Pumpernickel Bread
I am looking for a recipe for the real Olde World style Pumpernickel Bread.
The closest I have found so far is from Jeff Hamelman's book, BREAD, page 222.
Gordon
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I am looking for a recipe for the real Olde World style Pumpernickel Bread.
The closest I have found so far is from Jeff Hamelman's book, BREAD, page 222.
Gordon
Does anyone have a GOOD recipe for pumpernickel bread? I made a loaf yesterday that tasted like cardboard. It was made with cocoa, molasses, rye flour, etc...... HELP!! Even the dog wouldn't eat it!!
There are so many varieties of Pumpernickel itd be hard to say whats "good" and whats not as theyre quite different. We make a Dark Rye loaf with 60% whole rye flour, which is in some places called pumpernickel flour, its quite gritty and textured. Here we can buy a small rectangular block of dark, sweet, tangy, whole, fermented grain and heavy mealy flour, at the supermarket called Pumpernickel, dense as ever, it lasts weeks... But some people refer to our Dark Rye as pumpernickel, which is quite different - aromatic with caraway and fennel, moist, soft but still on the heavy side
The recipes one thing, the method may also not be so great if its that terrible ?
=== Does anyone have a GOOD recipe for pumpernickel bread? ===
The problem is that there are about 10 different types of bread sold in North America under the name "pumpernickel", and they range from the very dense and flavorful German-type breads to a very light variation on New York Jewish Rye. If you can describe the bread you are seeking one of the Fresh Loavers can probably point you in the right direction.
Just for starters, good recipes for the dense German type are found in Hamelman's _Bread_ and (a less traditional recipe) Reinhart's _Whole Grain Breads_, although both require a sourdough starter for good flavor. A recipe for the very light type is found in Rose Levy Bernbaum's _The Bread Bible_, and can be made with either yeast or sourdough.
sPh
I'm not sure you can get any more 'olde world' and authentic than Hamelman's Horst Bandel Black Pumpernickel. The bread is dark and delicious, with more flavour than than you would imagine from reading the relatively simple formula. It's all in the long low heat bake that bring the various rye components to a harmony of sweet and sour, with some hints of fruit ...somehow. The HB pumpernickel is easily the most full bodied, flavorful rye bread I've ever baked. It slices almost like a piece of firm cheese, and fills the house with a marvelous caramel like scent as it's baking. Honestly, I don't think you'll find a better recipe for Pumpernickel, but please let me know if you do.
Franko
go to Ananda blog on TFL. He is a baker teacher in North England and had posted several different recipes on this site, always with details and photos.
You can also type pumpernickel on the search box and you find a lot of recipes it's just take sometime to find the right articles amoung so many published !
Pumpernickel is a bread that can go from the kind of cake very moist and friable to a dryer result that is more like bread, all depend of the purcentage of rye you are mixing as well as the purcentage of the water. Molasses and cocoa are there only to color the bread which is already darker than a white one due to the use of rye that should be cracked grains, not flour.
Good luck, Bee
I guess the only genuine pumpernickel recipe published in web sites is Samartha's
http://www.samartha.net/SD/procedures/PPN01/index.html
Don't be fooled by the color of the picture, after at least 16 hours of baking it will look like the real one.
Mine came out like this after 18 hours. The smell of malt was intoxicating, addictive:)
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19495/after-18-hours-baking
Is there's something else than rye, water and sourdough it's not pumpernickel but something else, maybe good but not the real thing.
Yours is beautiful!! You know, the sad part is that I really like the pumpernickel out of the grocery store because thats all that I know. Yours looks really RICH and beautiful, but what I'm looking for is I guess a recipe for probably rye and pumpernickel swirl. I KNOW, I KNOW, its not the real thing, but its what I want!!!! Thank you so much for your time, its not everyday that someone is so kind.... Susan
=== You know, the sad part is that I really like the pumpernickel out of the grocery store because thats all that I know.===
Nothing sad about it; there are many different kinds of bread and you should start out by making what you like and want.
It sounds as if you want something similar to the light American pumpernickel in Rose Levy Beranbaum's _The Bread Bible_. See if your library has a copy and check it out (both the book and the recipe). You could get a swirl by making 1/2 batch each of the pumpernickel and of Rose's Real Jewish Rye and rolling the two doughs together at shaping as with any swirl bread.
Good luck!
sPh
KAF, www.kingarthurflour.com has several, more US grocery store style pumpernickel ryes you might also find appealing.
http://search.kingarthurflour.com/search.jsp?N=0&rt=r&Ntt=pumpernickel&x=48&y=21
Here's a link to a discussion of different rye flours, which also has links to other similar discussions on TFL.
King Arthur's "pumpernickel flour" is a very coarse ground whole rye flour, at least one step coarser than Hodgson Mills' whole rye. It works well for many darker, heavier rye recipes.
sPh
Do you think I can make some decent authentic pumpernickel with Hodgson Mill's Rye Flour and say some soaked berries and chopped berries added? I imagine I can get the berries from Whole Foods Market and chop them myself with my spice grinder--then add them into the mix.
It would sure be a lot more affordable as I can buy a 5lb bag of Hodgson Mill Rye Flour at the local market for $5.25.
French knife or herb chopper, just like nuts. They soften up nicely. :) Go for it!
Yes, it works great for that purpose. I use a lot of Hodgson Mill Rye and it is an excellent flour.
sPh
as I discovered recently here more or less by accident when baking some test loaves that I'd suggested for someone else...
Isn't pumpernickel one of those things with designated origin protection, or something similar?
However - I'm surprised to see "pumpernickel artisan bread flavor" that's just ... wrong. It may produce an authentic tasting loaf, but you all know its not the real thing..
-Gordon
interchangeable with rye and dark pumpernickel is dark rye.
Wouldn't Borodinsky Bread fall under the category of Dark Pumpernickel? If so then... http://www.gastronomicalme.com/2011/06/21/the-doughy-cleveage-of-mother-russia-borodinsky-bread/
is made with 100% rye pumpernickel flour, possibly with some whole rye berries and pumpernickel altus and it is a sourdough bread with no commercial yeast that is baked very low and slow 12 to 24 hours.
dbm
Sorry to interrupt. Can you save me the search and leave a link?
12 to 24 hrs for pulled pork I am familiar with, but for bread? I am very curious.
Thanks (and keep duking it out guys, this is one main way that I learn).
dobie
That is how real pumpernickel is cooked, in sealed boxes which brings out sweet nutty flavour in the bread. I have been told in the old days they where actually cooked in wooden boxes.
My comment on me going to have a kosher pork chop was in jest, no matter if I season a pork chop with kosher salt the meat still isn't kosher just as if you take a basic yeast risen wheat bread and add some "authentic artisanal pumpernickel flavour" and a little rye flour you are still a long way from having made pumpernickel. I don't doubt that he likes his bread and I may as well, and it may be similar to what a deli uses but in the end it still isn't pumpernickel.
Gerhard
First, I have never baked a true (or otherwise) Pumpernickle with any great success. Total rookie in that regard. That's why I'm paying attention. I have had them and loved them in both extremes.
And I am fascinated by the 'wooden boxes'. Any idea what the wood was, or did it not really matter which type?
I am a big fan of history and certainly search for 'authentic' methods. But, as such, I feel the definition of 'authentic' is very fluid throughout time. A lot would be determined by the particular age and context being considered.
I am quite sure that your 'Kosher Pork Chop' (by the addition of a bit of Kosher salt), is no more Kosher than my 'Green Matzoh Ball' soup (that I have made on the occassional Saint Paddy's day) is Irish, by the addition of some food coloring (OK, that didn't quite work out right, but I hope you get my drift).
While this is not an area of expertise for me, I would be cautious in establishing myself as an authority of anything, as that just tends to open up whole other cans of worms.
I totally respect your understanding of Pumpernickle but I would be cautious about referring to it as the only 'real' form, although I do understand why you would say that, historically. Your pumpernickle and legalr's are quite different breads, no doubt. Each quite enjoyable, I'm sure.
What I am curious about would be, what is KA's 'pumpernickel artisan bread flavor' made of, as well as their 'Perfect Rye Blend'?
I sure hope I don't end up regretting this post. I'm not trying to tick anyone off.
dobie
I like Youtube and here is a video of where pumpernickel originated from, I was born within 40 km of that bakery. That to me is the real thing, a wheat bread with the addition of a bit of colour and rye flour doesn't cut it.
Gerhard
Guten Appetit Germany (2): Pumpernickel | Euromaxx
Rye meal and water baked at 100 C for 24 hours.. I'm pretty sure I would like the SD version with some extra chops and scalded rye berries better:in it too; Thanks for the video link Gerhard
Gerhard
That was a very good video.
I particularly took note of where they said it was considered 'peasant bread'.
Just like lobster and shrimp were only used as 'slave' food or livestock fodder here in the States (Civil War era) as well as beef brisket, pork shoulders and many of the other 'historically' lesser cuts that are now so sought after as to command quite a high price.
Of course, back then a banana would cost you $1 (1860 money) at the docks, as well.
dobie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpernickel
gerhard is correct. In the old days,wooden boxes were used to bake the bread in and they are making a comeback too adn i saw a recent post on TFL with a link to buy bread boxes. . I have a really old pumpernickel recipe from the Netherlands that doesn't even have SD starter in it! Just rye meal, scalded whole rye berries with an option of pumpernickel altus in it - talk about a brick!
There are some recipes floating around for Jewish Pumpernickel that David Snyder has blogged about too here
Pumpernickel Bread from George Greenstein's "Secrets of a Jewish Baker"
but that isn't the old traditional German original recipe. Americans really bastardized the name, as if Satan's Farts isn't bad enough, where they added all kinds of coloring agents including cocoa, chocolate, molasses, barley malt syrup and caramel,flours other than rye, and commercial yeast not to mention drroppin g the long slow balebut these aren't pumpernickels anymore than Lucy is a pumpernickel.
My latest faorite bakign schedule is
350 F - 1 hour
300 F - 1 hour
250 F - 4 hours
225 F - 2 hours
200 F - 2 hours
then 8 hours in the turned off oven
That is a pretty typical style of baking schedule for pumpernickel
Only in the sense that anything and everything is called Borodinsky these days - like an abomination in your link.
For borodinsky? I was lead to believe this was an authentic recipe. Perhaps it isn't but an abomination?
Authentic? No, Whitley pulled it straight out of his you know what. The same also holds true for other "traditional Russian" recipes attributed to him. As to the "real" recipe - there isn't a single one. Borodinsky was developed over the number of year and techniques, ingredient proportions, and understanding of what those ingredients are, had been changing as time went along. There are several recipes posted here on TFL that are consistent with what Soviet recipe books said at one time or another. They are fairly easy to recognize - they always use scald, always use a mixture of flours, and more often than not have a 4-stage build.
http://nybakersbench.com/?cat=3
I would not call it pumpernickel but it is nice dark rye. The way I know Pumpernickel it would be much denser.
Gerhard
with rye meal, dump the molasses and the coriander and bake the bread low and slow for 12 hours covered the whole time, you would have a pumpernickel of note but ,as it is, it is Borodinski: of note-)
After a few weeks my starter and time to do the bread have finally collided. It is time! Borodinsky it is and now for the starter build and scald. I see why the first recipe Suave was offended to call it authentic. In this recipe I have just found it looks authentic as it has all the components described. The only thing I'm doing different is instead of rye malt it will just be extra whole rye with barley malt. I cannot get hold of the malted rye grain. On yes... And the wholegrain wheat flour will be whole spelt.
Abe
Making your own malted rye grain is pretty easy to do. I'm not sure if you mean the syrup or the diastatic or non-diastatic powder, but in any form, it is doable if you can get the rye berries.
Not for this bake no doubt, but for the future.
dobie
Sponge has been done. With what was left over from the newly created rye starter I added some to my ongoing mother starter like Dabrownman advised. I'm not keeping two going. This was just done for the Borodinsky bread. Now I'm going to do the scold with a touch of barley malt syrup (not quite sure how much to add in though). If this goes well then next time I'll make my own rye malt. Will be back to get advice.
Abe
I know you are deep in process, so I will be as brief as I can be.
Without dispareging other posters, dabrownman (dbm) is one who's opinions I would heed.
Regardless, I would reserve a bit of the original starter (without any addition), just in case things didn't work out.
I couldn't say how much barley malt syrup to add, but I'm pretty sure it would just be a 'wee bit'.
You are building a bread that I have never done, so I am ignorant, but fascinated.
Good luck with the scald.
dobie
I'm not too concerned as I've got my two year old ongoing starter anyway. I built this one from scratch especially for this bread. The scald with the coriander seeds, barley malt and (as an after thought) some toasted rye flour and rye flour smelled so good. I toasted some rye as that what it says to do with the malted rye (if you have any) and then grind it with the coriander. So as a substitute I toasted some normal rye flour and added a teaspoon and a bit of barley malt into the scald. So far so good!
2% for the BMS will be enough. Toasting the rye was a good add - love Toadies in bread - the best flavor enhancer of all time! Good luck with the bake. Not keeping two rye starters is wise!. Every time you make this bread you will make a new starter because it is cool, fun and old school. Plus it never fails and is easy as pie. Do the same thing when you make pumpernickel. In the old days,m even before i was a kid, when people baked bread communally once a week in the village WFO, as soon as this week's bake was done I can see every baker in town starting the sourdough for the next weeks bake. Lucy sees it more clearly with her Swabian Channeling App of course
I'm doing Latvian old school black bread next time.
2% for the BMS will be enough. Toasting the rye was a good add - love Toadies in bread - the best flavor enhancer of all time! Good luck with the bake. Not keeping two rye starters is wise!. Every time you make this bread you will make a new starter because it is cool, fun and old school. Plus it never fails and is easy as pie. Do the same thing when you make pumpernickel. In the old days,m even before i was a kid, when people baked bread communally once a week in the village WFO, as soon as this week's bake was done I can see every baker in town starting the sourdough for the next weeks bake. Lucy sees it more clearly with her Swabian Channeling App of course
I'm doing Latvian old school black bread next time.
Had been a while since I last made a starter from scratch and was good to see how far I've come since creating my very first one. Plus every time I do so I get to add some to my old starter making it healthy and flavoursome. The recipe says add some more rye malt to the main dough but as you suggest that I've added enough in the scald I won't add anymore barley malt and just do the molasses. It is a fun bread to make so far. Build a starter, prepare a preferment, do a scald, spices and molasses... I can tell its gonna be a hearty loaf.
Looking forward to your Latvian old school black bread. Did Lucy request it?
Abe, dbm
Sorry Abe, I did not realize that this starter was from scratch.
Please remember guys, I'm only observing, in no way experienced and I am only taking notes for the day that I do attempt this bread.
Regarding the scald, the thought crossed my mind, isn't that almost a tangzhong roux kind of thing?
dobie
But my tastes in bread have turned to the more hearty loaves with intense flavours. I came across this borodinsky bread and thought I'd have to try it. Yes, the starter "traditionally" is built from scratch each time. It is fed a little each day building up to the right amount which is then turned into bread. I have seen other breads using the scald method and its usually rye breads. I suppose it's a sort of tangzhong making the flour gel. I'm not sure on the whole process and why it is incorporated but I'm assuming texture.
Anyways, I'm off to bed while the starter is hard at work (I missed the deadline hence the starter build from the mature starter as supposed to just using it) and the scald rests overnight.
real Latvian Black Bread in the states and it costs too much to have it shipped from some and was looking for a recipe to make some. I though it would be like a SD Borodinski but it is 100% rye meal but the liquid is apple cider. I've been waiting for apple cider to come in season to make it. Another version is one with no SD in it at all just rye and cider that sits 24 hours in a tin and then baked like a pumpernickel - low and slow. I canlt decide which to make first.
I would think the rye malt in the main dough and scald is non diastatic red rye malt powder rather than barley malt syrup?. Red rye Malt is another fun thing to make at home if it doesn't go moldy and very common in Russian rye breads.
You will love the bread you are making Abe.
Latvian bread is definitely shipped and sold in the US. Local store down the block has more than a dozen varieties coming from several different bakeries. Some are exceptional, some are so-so in comparison. Prices are remarkably low considering the distance they have to travel - $3-50-4.00 per loaf.
Abe
Good to know your ongoing starter is safe and out of the way. The rest is all a great experiment.
Seems to me, that the variations you have made from necessity, are sticking pretty close to the intent, and therefore, will probably be successful.
Keep at it.
dobie
Add the starter to the scald tomorrow and allow that to bubble up. Make dough and shape into loaf time for final proof then bake. Hardest part will be leaving it for as close to 24 hours as I can before cutting into it.
I'm in new territory here and its very enjoyable.
Watch this space Dobie.
Abe
Please know, wild horses couldn't drag me away.
dobie
That's closer, but still nowhere near there. 1. It should be whole rye, not medium 2. Too much of too strong wheat flour (the ratios of ingredients are generally out of whack throughout the whole thing) 3. Russian sours are typically fermented at 70-75% hydration and ~30 °C. 4. The amount of water used is insane. I also have some reservations about baking temperatures and steaming.
Basically, you can see right away that it did not come out right - it's much too light, with collapsed top, and uneven crumb, where the lower part has collapsed and the top is too porous.
...
I am sorry but how is it open to interpretation? The recipe is 80% whole rye, 15% wheat flour (high extraction or clear), 5% red rye malt, 6% sugar, 4% molasses, 1% salt, 0.5% coriander. Has been that way for 80 years out of 85 of its proven existense. There were some minor adjustments of the ratios of rye flour between the stages, which are of little consequence, but even those have not changed in decades.
The origins are as debatable as Obama's citizenship - they are clear and documented, although some prefer to think otherwise.
There is no such thing as "GOST recipe" for anything - that's simply not what GOSTs are - they are quality standards and talk about final product with little regard as to what should go in and how the goal is achieved. It is perfectly possible to make a GOST-compliant "Borodinsky" done as a straight dough - no sour, and no scald. In fact, it has been done.
There's a number of early recipes, which likely were never particularly widespread - as in practiced in 1-2 bakeries at the most, they are of interest but to about the same degree as, say, Radiohead covers are - pointless unless you learned to appreciate the real thing.
There is what probably was meant as a post-Borodinsky recipe, consistent with general graduate move away from lower grade flours observed in Russian baking over past 50-70 years. I have no idea whether it has ever gone beyond the test bakes, although if I were a baker in Russia, that's the one I'd use.
I object to you claiming that I know everything. I don't. However, I am reasonably confident that I know quite a bit, which leads to increased levels of respect to authenticity and historical accuracy on my part. However awkward and unwanted it makes me feel at times.
...
Actually, if there is one thing that GOST stipulates it is the amount of water. It does not do so directly, rather it defines the amount of water in the final bread, but those are connected values, and for a 1 kilo loaf give a precise range for the hydration of the final dough - 78-80%.
Writing an illustrated, reliable, repeatable, and reproducible high quality recipe (and I would not post any other kind) is exceedingly difficult. Ask anyone who tried. That's why writing a good cookbook often takes years.
Re: similarity. You know, good cheddar and cheez-whiz are more than 95% the same.
...
Ouch.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
dobie
nt
If the baker has any skill whatsoever, any respect for his craft, he is perfectly capable of reproducing the bread every single time or works diligently on getting there. When thing don't go as expected, he knows the mistakes are his, and there's work to be done. "Never turn out the same" - that's just a justification hacks give. Passing lack of ability for "personal expression" only works until one is asked to draw a horse, so to speak.
legalr's Latin quote, meaning "in matters of taste, there can be no dispute," seems quite insightful given the sentiments expressed thus far in this thread. And southern grits girl touched on the same idea way up at the top when she said she liked supermarket pumpernickel because it was all she knew. (I've been following a similar thread on this site about Borodinsky bread.)
One of the things that I feel confounds the issue is the terminology for rye flours. As I understand it, the term "pumpernickel" refers to a whole-grain flour, very coarsely ground. "Dark rye" is more finely ground flour, but still retains most or all of the bran layer. And "light rye" has less of the bran layer (almost none in some cases). So, is bread with pumpernickel flour in it pumpernickel bread? I'd have to say no. Pumpernickel bread is so much more than its component flours.
While there is no doubt that there is a traditional recipe for "genuine" pumpernickel, the vast majority of people not raised in Germany have not had the good fortune of exposure to it. When I was a kid, my father was always in search of pumpernickel like he had when he was a kid. On the few occasions when he would say, "That's about as close as you can get," what he had picked out is what I now know to be a regular dark rye loaf. In those years my mother also used to occasionally bring home from the supermarket a loaf labeled as "black Russian rye" which was anything but. We loved those rye breads because they were a departure from the everyday white that we had in our lunches.
Fast forward 20 years or so to when I began making my own breads, and I continued my father's quest for "real" pumpernickel. I tried one of the recipes out there with cocoa powder and instant coffee granules in it... that wasn't it. I found a German deli that sold a small narrow loaf called pumpernickel - it was about 3 inches square on the end and about 14 inches long and cut in very thin slices. I've chewed on styrofoam packing peanuts with more flavor... so that wasn't it either. Finally, I came across Bernard Clayton's "Westphalian Pumpernickel" recipe. I thought, at last here it is. What came out of the oven was a dark brown brick that made me finally realize once and for all that I don't really like the taste of burnt sugar (I'm not even very fond of caramel). So, I never really had pumpernickel growing up, and when I finally got as close as I could I didn't like it anyway. But what I thought was pumpernickel was good enough to fuel a lifelong quest for good rye bread.
Fortunately, just a few pages away from the Westphalian pumpernickel in Clayton's book was his "Seeded Rye" recipe, which is my favorite rye recipe. It's started out with a rye sour that you submerge onion chunks in (in cheesecloth) overnight, and just gets better from there. I personally go heavier with the caraway seeds than the recipe calls for because I love the flavor. With deli mustard, a nice cheddar, a couple slices of liverwurst, and my grandma's recipe garlic dill pickles - ambrosia!!
May sound gross to some, but de gustibus non est disputandum.
of Bread, the only bread book I have, and my biggest disappointment was that he had no rye sourdough starter, his rye sour starter on page 283 uses a pack of active dry yeast with a slice of onion in it which isn't a rye sour sourdough starter at all, plus all of his rye breads, including the pumpernickel, had commercial yeast in them, some amount of wheat flour and baked high and fast. There also was no Westphalian rye recipe in it or a seeded one either. The closest thing to real pumpernickel is his Dutch Roggebrood on page 179. that still has molasses in it but no wheat flour and no leaven of any kind in it, even though it had brewers yest in it, and baked at 250 F for 5 hours.
hard to imagine a complete book of bread with no sourdough rye breads in it.and a real weak spot for sure.
Lucy's take on Westphalian Rye - but it is only 63% rye. The original recipe was from a German blog here http://brotdoc.com/2013/12/23/westfalen-kruste-westphalia-crust/
and you might find a Westphalian pumpernickel there
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/37266/lucy%E2%80%99s-take-adri%E2%80%99s-westphalian-rye
Happy baking
I mentioned this a couple or three years ago, but your comment makes it once more appropriate. Back in the eighties, I managed a cut over wood lot. There were an awful lot of bare areas, lacking in topsoil. For an emergency fix, I sowed cereal rye. Rye is known for its rapid root growth. It will produce ~3 miles of roots and micro-roots per day for the 100 day growing season. Builds topsoil and holds the soil together, preventing erosion.
The interesting part for me was scraping ripe rye berries into my hand and tossing them into my mouth. The flavor of of the rye was very caraway like. I'm guessing the rye flavor was from an aromatic because after a little age, the flavor profile changes away from caraway.
My hypothesis is that people began adding caraway to rye breads to emulate fresh rye's taste and aroma.
FWIW, (for what it's worth, Dobie :-))
gary
gary
For What It's Worth is perhaps my favorite Stephen Still's song (Buffalo Springfield era) and in fact was not written as a 'Vietnam War' protest song (as is often assumed), rather his call for peace regarding clashes between police and protesters in a very localized 'night club - loud music' protest dust up in Los Angeles at the time (circa 1966).
Regardless, I no sooner wrote that song than the quote you mention, 'I personally go heavier with the caraway seeds'. I'm not sure if you were attributing that quote to me or not, but it is in fact 'MonkeyMan's'.
That being said, I couldn't agree more with both of you. I do the same.
I find what you say regarding rye as a cover crop fascinating. As an avid gardener, I have (these last 3 years) converted my efforts to the 'no till' method, by which one does not 'turn over', till, plow nor otherwise disturb the soil's substructure. There are many valid reasons to do this, not to mention my own inherent laziness.
Far reaching root stucture and it's consequences regarding aeration and the microbiological 'wormy' health of the soil (and thus the plants), not being the least of them.
This past week I planted a number of grains (cast in the wild, right in the deer paths), rye among them, just to see what happens.
I have grown caraway in my gardens (it took a second season to flower and seed) and found the fresh seed to be so much more vibrant compared to the dehydrated 'store bought' product. Of course, when my own were dried, they were reasonably similar.
I have often wondered about the connection between rye and caraway. I think you have perhaps provided that answer. I will know for sure when I taste the fresh berries myself (not that I doubt you). I can't wait.
Apparently it is a quick crop to seed? Planted in fall, cropped in spring?
I'm thinking that it is not only good for soil structure, but for great flavor as well. Fresh rye berries that evoked caraway, hmmm, can't wait.
I guess even fresh rye berries dried at home would loose that 'caraway' essence. The viable oils probably evaporate quickly, I'm guessing.
Anyway, great thoughts, I'll plant even more tomorrow.
Thank you
dobie
If I remember correctly, I planted late spring, March or April, and the rye was fully ripe by the end of June or so. It is a colder clime plant than is usually grown here in Texas. I think a fall planting would work well.
A friend of mine told a story on her dad who was a farmer in Burnet, (central) TX. He had a field that suffered from erosion, so he sowed it in rye. Rye grows to 7ft in good conditions. My friend watched her father drive his tractor across the field and suddenly disappear. He had driven into an arroyo that was hidden by the tall rye. They had to use another tractor to pull the first out. Lucky her dad wasn't hurt.
The post was actually replying to the other guy. The acronym expansion was for you. :-)
gary
dryer weather and elevations here in Austria. Folks wander or go walking here a lot, not just the deer. It is a national sport. To walk from the woods towards a hay field near a caraway field and around orchards and grain fields is a real pleasure. The small fields and forests present a large variety in a relatively small space. One farm orchard near here has hints of vanilla when the grass is tall. Would love to have that in my starter!
Wouldn't doubt it at all if caraway use came from fresh rye emulation. The orchard makes me wonder about vanilla along the same lines. There are some very old varieties of pears growing there and I don't ever remember the use of sprays or weed killers in my lifetime. So many wild flowers and grasses. When the hay is tall, it gets cut and I can't help myself to go ever so slowly down the tractor path taking in all the aromas. There is a hunting perch in one apple tree frequently visited by elves. I'm sure. Such a lovely place.
About the Pumpernickel, There is German Pump. and there is American Pump. Two very different breads. so... the older one is German and very specific in it's method and formula. That is Pumpernickel. The American one (which I grew up on) also loved and has its place but I know better than to get in the middle of a discussion that cannot end. It is perhaps called simply Pumpernickel in America, but to the rest of the world, it is American Pumpernickel.
It's interesting that Gary.turner mentioned his earlier post about planting rye. He and I both weighed in on that same post regarding someone's question about caraway in rye bread. This is that post:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/37374/history-caraway-seeds-rye-bread
Dabrownman, I wholeheartedly agree with your opinions of Clayton's lack of sourdough ryes. I have the same edition of his book that you do, and I picked it up about 20 years ago when I was a raw newbie at baking bread. It seemed to me a wonderful resource at the time, and I pored over it for hours reading recipes.
Some years after I got that book I started a wild sourdough starter of my own and successfully kept it going for quite some time. It was a natural progression for me to experiment with it by starting a second container and feeding it with rye flour instead of wheat. The Seeded Rye recipe improved in flavor by an order of magnitude and I never looked back. I eventually learned how to manipulate the dough so that I was able to eliminate the commercial yeast too. So even though Clayton's recipe was my starting point, I feel it's a legitimate sour rye now the way I make it.
I was stunned to read that Clayton's book is your only bread book. The depth and breadth of your bread knowledge is truly awe-inspiring, so you got me curious... I've only been visiting this site for a couple years now, so I'm certain I've missed any conversations where you may have expounded on your background. Were you a professional in the bread industry at some time? Are you a university food scientist? An extremely well-read hobbyist?
Can I follow in your footsteps? I'd love to learn the path you followed in your attainment of bread wisdom so that I can improve my own skill and knowledge.
getting Clayton's book. Back then SF was about the only place where SD bread was a serious baking endeavor. I suppose i am too hard on Clayton for his lack of SD rye breads in the book and his small section of sourdough ones otherwise. We forget that back then and until the 90's and 2000's when Peter Reinhart personally and pretty much single handedly, resurrected SD bread baling from the dead, there wasn't much SD bread baking going on anywhere outside the SF area.
Can't really blame Clayton for publishing a book about what bread baking was all about back then - commercial yeast was king - not that it isn't now - just less so. Peter Reinhart also brought back SD whole grain bread and now sprouted grains too. If there is a bread god it is PR and no one is even close he is my personal hero for all of these reasons.
While I only have one bread book as opposed to a hundred cooking books, I have read almost all of them by every author ever published that are on file at the Gilbert Library. I can't see paying for the same books twice and the ones at the library were really, really expensive to buy once you add in the cost of the buildings and there maintenance and all people to handle the books etc. The cost is astronomical and why, one day, the libraries will soon be toast and closed as an unnecessary expense. Once all the books are digitized the library will no longer be wanted or needed - it is just too costly, inefficient and outdated - but I am using it while it is still around. I call it reading in peaceful luxury that I couldn't afford otherwise:-)
Once I retired i have had all kinds of time to do what ever i wanted to do. The history, science and how too of SD bread baking is one of those passions along with science in general especially futurists, math, computers, physics.and options trading. My brother and i bought the first Apple computer to hit the market, actually it wasn't the first but #26. We had both learned to program computers in college he had learned Cobal and I learned Fortran.
The Apple didn't come with any software so you had to write your own if you wanted to do more than play Pong with it:-) Nothing like Applesoft Basic! We ordered the extra ram and had the max at 64 k. There was no such thing as data storage or hard drives when the Apple came out so you couldn't really save anything. except to those huge floppy disks. We did get the first hard drive when it came out about a year later - 10 Megs. We never thought we would ever need more ram and storage at the time:-)
We were in hardware heaven even though that tiny hard drive cost $1500 and all total we had about $4,000 tied up in that system. But we looked at it as an investment, depreciated it off on our taxes and starting a private hedge fund company, 25 years before they were called that. We wrote software based on Zahorchak's 'The Art of Low Risk Investing' (his thesis for his MBA at Harvard that he wrote in 1974 rather than the book he wrote with the same title many years later), to analyse stocks and other market based investments - the original reason we bought the Apple computer - this was 1978. It changed my life forever. That is the way i look at what I do. I expect everything i do to change my life forever and it does good or bad.. Why should it not?
I am an serious armature, if mature or over proofed, home baker with the goal of being the best bread baker I can be. What i did to get where I am now, (about half way to being the baker i want to be and the easiest half,) may not work for many but it works for me. I don't mind sharing it with you because teaching what you know is the highest form of generosity and hardest good character attribute to have and hold dear. It is pretty boring work for most people for most of the time but, I find it rewarding and there are days when you actually get to bake something::-)
First off, besides reading every bread baking gook out there, i read all the scientific articles and journals written about bread baking that I can lay my hands on. Oddly, most of the search work is already done for you trying to find this information. If you go to sourdough in Wikipedia- much of the basic stuff is right there but it just the beginning, If you go down the page to type 1 sourdough you will see after the mention of fructose in paragraph 2 you will see a footnote 54. If you click on 54 you will be taken to the footnote page where 54 is listed as Gobbetti, M., A. Corsetti (1997). "Lactobacillus sanfrancisco a key sourdough lactic acid bacterium: a review"
If you click on that you a e taken to the article in Food Microbiology that is full of additional food for thought witht the footnotes for that article. It also points out that Food Microbiology is a great resource for learning about SD bread baking. But under the one Wiki post for Sourdough alone there are 69 other footnotes you can go to - to find scientific and other articles about all kinds of stuff that you never knew existed about SD bread. They you can look up bread enzymes, yeast, Lactobacillus, fructose, maltose, maltase, sprouted and whole grain flour and so on and so on to find thousands of other links to bits of reading material, sites and organizations that are a treasure trove of scientific and other info about SD bread baking,.
But it is TFL that has always been the best resource and inspiration. The folks here know SD bread better than anywhere else, i learned about temperature, hydration, methods, whole grains, bran, scalds, Toadies, dough enhancers and additives, sprouted grains, the dark and light sides and all the rest - so I pay attention and read the posts .
The last thing is baking bread and posting about it. I'm not one to bake the same bread twice if I haven't screwed it up really bade the first time - too boring and I'm too old to do the same thing over and over to get it perfect before moving on:-) There is just too much to do and learn. I think the fastest way to gain the most bread ground and overall knowledge is to bake as many different breads, levains and starters as possible in as many ways and shapes as you can. Even though i only bake 1 loaf a week now a days i am always trying something new with each one.
The best part about TFL is that it points me in ways i would never thing about going as long as i stay open minded. Making malts, VWG, baked scalds, sprouting grains, milling, sifting, dehydrating and trying all kinds of new ingredients is just a matter of paying attention and saying yes.
Like you i too spent hours with Clayton,building every starter in his book and converting all the hundreds and hundreds of great yeast breads to sourdough ones., I also think coming up with your own recipes teaches you to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it. I have over 400 different recipes in the bread portion of my cookbook that are documented with pictures and spreadsheet formulas that i Have posted here.
Odd how things change. In the beginning i posted things to learn what the heck I was doing wrong ant the folks here were great at getting me doing the right things, Now i post so others can tell me what to do next and ask questions about why i do what i do which also makes me think about the most important part of baking - the why it works or doesn't work..... and how to get it to work if it doesn't.
Success in all things requires you to have the hundred good character attributes that always lead to success while avoiding the 3 that always lead to failure and i should know because i wrote the book on it by failing my way to what ever success has come my way:-) Some folks think skill is what makes them successful but they are confused and completely wrong - skill has nothing to do with success. Skill is just the gravy that comes with the hard work of building the good character attributes required for success. What counts is your willingness .... to do, to do everything required for success and pay any price, your determination, persistence,,perseverance, being: fair, decent, honest, gracious and generous.and all the rest will get you to where ever you want to go - you just can't go anywhere else. The way you get there is by solving life's problems. Not solving them is detrimental to your future - what ever that might be. Better to get er done before it does you in:-)
An old mentor said to me decades ago, There are 3 kinds of people - those that make things happen, those that watch things happen and those that wonder what the heck happened.- you will be all three at times but it is best be making things happen - both good and bad. You can recover from your many mistakes but you can never recover from doing nothing.. He was very wise indeed. it isn't how smart you are but what you learn from the smarts you have - especially the stuff that no one else knows or knows what to do with it.
Sorry to take up so much of your time. Hope it helps to explain what i do and why i do it - there is more than it seems to happy balking - just like everything else:-) Lucy is a big help too. Now If I can get Lucy an app to win the lottery.....
I completely enjoyed reading your response to my query. You have lived an awesome life and now you're being rewarded with the time and ability to throw yourself into your passion for baking. That passion shows in just about every post I've seen from you and I nearly always learn something from your notes.
My first degree was in Biochemistry (with the intent to go to medical school) and while in college, I got really good at doing what you described as far as using footnotes to direct me to further research opportunities. It's almost like being handed a treasure map. One journal article I read had about 40 footnotes to it and I went and found and xeroxed every one of the referenced articles to use as research for a paper I was writing. After that I was hooked, and used that technique for the rest of the papers I wrote until I graduated. I enjoyed the hands-on aspect of medicine a lot and went the route of EMT to RN instead of going to medical school. It was faster, and required a significantly smaller financial investment to get my BSN, but at the cost of doing less university-level learning. I sadly got out of the habit of reading scientific journals and my brain shelved the process of actually doing research. And although I think Wikipedia is my absolute favorite internet resource, it admittedly makes you lazy because it's so darned easy. I have to confess it never even dawned on me to take advantage of other peoples' research and dig through the footnotes. You have re-opened my eyes to that process and for that I offer a heartfelt - THANK YOU - I'll be starting with the notes you referred to and going from there. Should give me a couple years' reading material. ;-)
I was about 10 or 12 the first time my mom felt it was safe to let me cook my own scrambled eggs. I had seen some guy on PBS cook a scrambled egg then roll it from the edge all the way across the pan into a tube shape, and I really wanted to give it a try. That first one came out really well and I loved cooking from that point on. That progressed from making my own breakfasts into cooking family dinners (on my assigned night) until I left for college. After college (1990) breadmakers were really starting to develop a significant presence in the market and a gal I worked with used to bring hers to work and start a batch in the morning. By lunchtime the whole ER smelled like a bakery and we all got to share fresh bread for lunch - it was awesome! Being into tech stuff in the 70's and 80's, you might remember a catalog called DAK that sold all kinds of techy gadgets, and I got a breadmaker from them called the Turbo Baker IV (three previous iterations) which I later found out was probably made by Wellbuilt then labeled with DAK's logo. It was round, with a cylindrical pan, and looked like R2-D2, with a huge domed glass lid - horrible for heat retention but wonderful for watching what was going on in the pan during the cycle. Of course, the very first run was the obligatory white loaf. Then I had to try something different. The next one was a heavy multigrain recipe that was so dense it bound up the paddle and shut the motor off. That didn't stop the cycle however, and it went ahead and baked. Smelled and tasted wonderful, but it was essentially a brick in the bottom of the pan. Assuming I had done something wrong the first time, I tried again and the same thing happened. But I pulled the dough out before baking and kneaded it by hand (the best I could) and threw it in the oven. It came out like a brick again, but still smelled and tasted great. I figured if I was going to keep trying "advanced" recipes I needed some advanced help - that's when I got Clayton's book.
I literally read every recipe in the book, and I retain about 90% of what I read, so I was building up background knowledge about baking over those early years. I actually baked about 30% of the breads in the book and got a lot of experience by trial and error. The next book I picked up was Reinhart's first edition of the Brother Juniper book (I highly recommend the cajun stuffing recipe that uses his Three Pepper loaf, and the Struan is incredible). There weren't any other titles by him for quite some time after that, but every time I saw a new one I picked it up. I'm with you about his godlike status in the bread world and his books occupy a special shelf among my cookbook collection.
A couple years ago I stumbled onto TFL while trying to keep myself awake working an abnormally quiet night shift in the ER. And I have to say you are absolutely correct about it's value as a resource. I've learned terminology, skills, and techniques here that I never even knew existed, despite all the bread books I've read. I will remain a member for as long as it exists - Thanks Floydm!! The other thing about TFL is the sense of community here. Everybody seems like a friend or a next door neighbor you can depend upon to borrow a cup of flour from. There was an uncharacteristically snide individual who was being purposefully adversarial earlier in this thread, but other than that I have seen nothing but support and encouragement from the posters on this site. On another quiet night in the ER recently I discovered the Videos link above (I have no idea why I didn't explore this earlier) and I have been rabidly watching all the videos linked to from here, as well as the videos they subsequently link to on youtube.com in general. Actually being able to see people like Peter Reinhart, Richard Bertinet, and Ciril Hitz doing their stuff is like going to a baking class, and I'm having a ton of fun with it. (That's the whole point - to have fun - right?) That's what inspired me to try the slap and fold technique with really wet dough you and Maverick helped me with earlier. So I'm now venturing down another exciting new path in my development as a baker.
Again thank you for your attention and careful reply. I do feel it helped to explain a bit about you and I hope my return comments above did the same without being overly lengthy.
To steal your closing...
Happy Baking
--Mike
I'm always telling my wife that I was talking with a friend on TFL and she always stops me and says 'they are not your friends thye are just people you talk to on the internet' I say.......well they are friendlier than some people i know - looking straight at her:-) I love the videos on YouTube, especially the ones of old school bakers using WFO's from around the world.
A Fresh Loafian Eric Hanner, who died suddenly a couple of years ago and may he rest in peace, commented on one of my posts long ago that I needed to be doing Slap and Folds instead of what i was doing. i went right to YouTube and found a lady named Bridget, if I probably have her name wrong, doing her version of slap and folds that was different than Richard B's - she made quarter turns every time. Changed my bread making forever and another example of how a Fresh Loafian and YouTube can work together to help another make better bead, Another time i was struggling with flat loaves so I posted pictures of before and after proofing in a basket, i thought I was proofing to 100%, which is always the wrong number no matter what, Mini Oven took one look at the two photos and immediately said I was way over proofing - it was really at least 150% . Changed my bread making forever...That is the way it goes around here.
So, My wife is wrong and we are right:-)
This one was done by a woman from Spain who apparently runs some kind of baking school. She was speaking Spanish throughout the video, but it was dubbed in English. I think her name was Babette, but not entirely sure about that. She also was doing a quarter turn with each slap. Although there is no denying that Bertinet gets stellar results with his technique, it just feels to me that more is happening with the quarter turns. -- Probably my lack of experience. If I had been professional as long as he has I'd probably get good results his way too.
Our wives ought to get together for coffee. I grab my tablet and try to squeeze in another video whenever I have a few minutes' down time, and the other day she said I had become addicted to bread blogs. LOL
If he understood my need to talk about all things bread, I never would have found this corner of the net. :)
...and I thank everyone else for being here. Happy Thanksgiving!
...and I know, this may sound crummy but ... Thank you, Floyd, for starting and keeping up such a wonderful bread site.
For helping me to get this far. Not too long ago I was completely clueless and you helped me get to where I am today. Along with many others. Dabrownman, Gordon, ElPanadero, MWilson all my teachers. Everyone on TFL has a part in my successes. Thank you all.
my learning curve as well. I came here pretty clueless myself. :)
I don't recall your ever being clueless. Between you and Pat, all bases seem to be covered.
gary
makes me look anti-clueless. :)
I'm a B.C. fan too.
I found this recipe recently that seems pretty close to a true pumpernickel. The only question I have is her use of Maple Syrup.
http://www.thebreadshebakes.com/2014/08/baking-traditional-real-german-pumpernickel-bread/
No need to, and how long has cane sugar been in Europe? 500 yrs max. And it certainly wasn't peasant food. More rye dough recipes, like cookies, contain sugar beet but that's another something to look into... Rye is sweet without the added sugar. I wonder how sweet tasting the water from draining the cooked berries was before she discarded it. I would keep that water and forget the added sugar syrup.
Quote from the linked recipe:
120g maple syrup (traditionally cane sugar syrup is used but I prefer maple syrup)
be the sweetener used in Westphalian Pumpernickel.
ruebenkraut.png
The German wiki specifically mentions Westphalian Pumpernickel under its use examples in baking. A picture shows it also being used as a pumpernickel rye bread topping. The English version talks about Treacle and golden syrup.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuckerrübensirup
Zuckerrübensirup = Sugar Beat Molasses?
I wonder if an equivalent is available in US, and what does it taste like?
When I was a kid in Switzerland we used to mix a mild molasses with sweet butter and spread it on brown bread. It tasted so incredibly good.
I haven't been able to find a similar mellow molasses in the USA.
Rübenkraut doesn't really taste like molasses, it doesn't have the bitterness and acidity that you find in molasses. If you go to a German or Polish deli you may have a good chance of finding it. I still occasionally eat it on fresh crusty buns or dark rye bread while my wife thinks it is disgusting so I would say it is like many things an acquired taste. I still enjoy pickled herring, Sauerbraten, salted licorice.... and other things that seem to only taste good to people that grew up eating them.
Gerhard
Amazon has "Sugar Beet Syrup" which I believe is the same thing?
Had to laugh. It truly is the "Everything Store". . .
Wow, this is a food for the common man but at the price amazon charges you should be able to buy a case. I think the most I have paid for a jar was $8.
This is the brand that is in our cupboard.
for that price.
I see that 18 oz of that brand of Sugar Beet Syrup are available for about $10 shipping included in US Amazon. Do you see those kind of price differences often Canada vs USA Amazon?
10 to 20% difference is not unexpected but this was over the top, at amazon.ca you have to spend $39 for free shipping.
Gerhard