Senfbrot Revisited - Mustard Cheese Bread with Sourdough
Several years ago, a baking buddy asked me to help him with a German recipe.
The formula, published by a German bakers' association [1], combined rye meal and cracked wheat with mustard and cheese. The amounts, of course, were calculated for a commercial bakery, as were the sparse instructions. I had to downsize the formula to home baking proportions.
A friend of slow fermentation, I re-wrote the procedure, from using just a small amount of pre-fermented flour, to preferment plus soaker (for the coarser grinds), as well as a long, cold fermentation of the dough.
For my first bread I used a medium-hot yellow mustard from Düsseldorf
I was very pleased with the result, a beautiful red golden bread, with a stunning, almost neon-yellow crumb. Pleasantly spicy (but not too much), it tasted great with cold cuts, and was a nice surprise when toasted: a bread with built-in grilled cheese!
After writing a post about the Senfbrot, I never got to baking it again. Like my friend Dabrownman, I find that there are always interesting new breads out there, so why make the same, when you can try something new?
But then I received an email from food historian, lecturer and author Demet Güzey [3]. The Senfbrot had caught her eye, as she was doing research on mustard.
Taking this a sign from above, I revisited the formula, trying it with different kinds of cheese and mustard. I, also, substituted the preferment with a sourdough starter, and reduced the yeast in the final dough even more (down to 1/3 of the original recipe amount!)
If you prefer a more assertive taste of cheese, you can choose a sharper one. For me, a version made with sharp cheddar was a bit too much.
For the updated recipe, please follow me to my blog "Brot & Bread" [4] (recently relocated to WordPress).