txfarmer 30% rye sourdough sandwich loaf
I've been trying to make a decent loaf with rye but with little success. I recently saw txfarmer's recipe on this forum and decided to give it a go. To be honest, I was sceptical - with my previous attempts, 30% rye resulted in a relatively flat loaf but with the txfarmer recipe, I have to say I'm staggered with the result.
The loaf is light and fluffy and perfectly formed - the taste is lovely too being slightly on the sweet side - It would be great with cheese or jam.
The initial mix looked very discouraging though - very wet and difficult to shape. I tried to mix it as txfarmer suggested but I don't know what 'stage 3 windowpane' means!!! So I left it in the mixer for longer than normal and then tried some S&F but the dough was so wet that it was difficult. I put it into the 1lb tin and left it - the proving took around 6 hours (to an inch above the rim) and the oven spring was fantastic. I was expecting some big holes in the crumb but it is beautifully uniform.
Question to txfarmer (or anyone else) What in the list of ingredients caused the huge rise and oven spring? Was it the sugar? or the milk?. Have you tried to make it with less (or no) sugar? I'd really like to know the cause as then I could try that with my 'normal' loaves.
Anyway, I'd just like to say thank you txfarmer - this recipe is superb and I'll make it again.
Cheers
is intensive mixing/good dough development.
Here's a post where she defines "stage 3 windowpane".
I suspect you can do this with other recipes as well - no milk or sugar required.
Master piece! Beautiful Crumb! I got a question. Have you replace some part of bread flour with whole rye or whole wheat? It looks like quite a lot of brans in the bread. Do you stick to the original recipe or make some adaption?
It's 30% rye and 70% white. I used olive oil instead of fat though
Cheers
I place a lot of worth on the size and shapes of tins. Could you elaborate on the description of the "one pound tin?" ..and slip in a photo too? :)
Just taken a photo but for the life of me I cannot see how to upload it here. The loaf tin is approx 6" x 4" x 3" and very old - it was my mother's from when she used to make bread!!
Wow, I didn't know loaf pans came in those dimensions! Of course, maybe they don't anymore. Lovely to have a unique size and item with personal meaning.
I have 4 'antique' ones but I recently bought a new non-stick one because I like to bake in batches of 5. The tins make a very convenient size of loaf which generally last just a day - then I get another from the freezer - perfect.
Cheers
I looked up the recipe after reading your post here. It seems the hydration level would only be about 60% so I'm having a hard time understanding that you said "The initial mix looked very discouraging though - very wet and difficult to shape." At my house, with the flour I use, 60% hydration is not so wet at all with white flour, and would be quite stiff with rye. What did I miss?
Very slack - maybe the egg and oil contributed
Cheers
As a rule of thumb, for dough feel, treat the egg as liquid and the same with oil. If the 60% hydration dough has eggs and oil amounting to 10%, the 'feel' of the dough would be as if it were ~70& hydration; just not as sticky.
cheers,
gary
It's good to know the effect of other liquids - I understand that milk can be regarded as only 87% water.
I was counting the milk as 100% water, but I wasn't sure how much to count the egg and oil as. I know for normal hydration count, the oil isn't included, but I'm sure it affects the softness/slackness of the dough. I just don't know how much.
If you count all of those items at 100% liquid, the result for this recipe would be a tad over 82% hydration (wetness). That would be slack, indeed!
I decided to try this recipe, because I had read txfarmer's excellent post about soft white sandwich bread, and I just recently decided to try my hand at rye and was struggling with it. I used dark rye instead of medium rye. The dough was not slack at all, but very soft and silky smooth after the intense mixing. That was surprise number one. Rye absorbs a lot more water than white (wheat) flour, so I expected it to be dry. Then, I read that this recipe makes dough that is slack. I wasn't sure which it would be, but it was neither for me. The change in flour (dark rye vs. medium) may have something to do with it. I also used KAF Bread flour, instead of the mix of Bread and AP that the recipe suggests. And I used butter instead of oil.
The bread turned out wonderfully, although I think when I make it again, I will skip the initial 15 minutes of 400F temp, and just do the whole bake at 375F for the same amount of time. I may also reduce the sugar. The bread did end up having a little sweet taste. Actually, it was enough that with a few raisins mixed in and a sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon on top, it could be considered a dessert bread. I hadn't calculated it until after the dough was rising on the counter, but the sugar content is 10% of the flour amount, (and actually so is the oil). I usually use 4% for sugars (and 8% for oils) when I include them in my bread. I may try this recipe with 5 or 6 percent sugar and see what it does. The bread is very soft and delicious exactly as it turned out, though, no complaints.
The bread would be lovely with jam or some cheeses but next time I'll try a bit less sugar.
Cheers