Tag Archives: Rye

#37. Swedish Rye Bread and memories of an awkward teenage date.

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In week 37 of the Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge we tackle Swedish Rye bread. How, you may ask, does Swedish Rye differ from the regular rye bread we are all familiar with?  This bread is flavoured with licorice flavoured aniseed and fennel seed and a pinch of cardamom.  It also calls for dried orange zest.  Fellow challenger Janice, of “Round the Table” is so dedicated, she dried her own orange zest from oranges growing  in her own yard.  Her own orange trees!  I am more than a little envious.

 

 To be honest, I’m not much of a black licorice lover. I’m more of a Twizzlers girl! 

My dislike of the licorice flavour probably goes back to when I was 18 years old and went out on my first real “grown up” date.  You know, dressing up and going to a nice restaurant, not just “hanging out” at his parents place or yours!  Things were going well until after dinner when the waiter brought 2 flaming liqueurs to the table.  I had no idea what you were supposed to do.   Should I blow out the flame or wait until the flame burned out and then drink it.  It was all just so awkward.  We  just stared at the drinks and then at each other, both too embarrassed to ask what to do.  Eventually the flame burned out and we drank the liqueur.  It was awful.  Eventually the romance also burned out (OK, full disclosure here, he dumped me!) I guess ever since then, licorice flavoured things have left a bitter taste in  my mouth. 

 Since then I have learned that right after the drink is lit you are supposed to blow it out and then down it.  For the more adventurous, you can take the shot and hold it in your mouth and then light the sambuca from your mouth and let the flames light up momentarily before swallowing the shot.  And then in the “don’t try this at home kids” category, you can let the flame keep burning and down the shot while still on fire. I think the logistics of this would be quite challenging and I can only imagine setting myself on fire if I tried to do this.

Whoops, I digress.  Back to Swedish Rye Bread.  To say that I was not looking forward to this bread was an understatement.  I was telling my friend Ross about this bread and he mentioned that he loved licorice flavoured foods.  I promised  I’d bake it for him.  This bread takes 2 days to make.  On day 1 the starter “sponge” is prepared.  It contains some of my sourdough starter, molasses, orange peel, aniseed, fennel seed, cardamom amd some white rye flour.  The next day the sponge is mixed wth yeast. salt, brown sugar, shortening and bread flour.  After a quick 6 minutes of kneading, I had a smooth dough.

After the bread is allowed to rise for the first time the loaves are formed.  I opted for batards (free form ovals) as I would get a chance to practice my slashing skills.

 After slashing, the loaves rise for another 90 minutes.  They are egg washed and baked.  I have to admit they looked quite beautiful.  I sliced off a small piece to try and it was not as bad as I feared.  I guess my tastebuds as well as my taste in men have grown up a bit.  My friend Ross loved the bread.

P.S.  I have now gone through my second 10 kilogram sack of bread flour.  Had anyone told me that at the beginning of this challenge, last May, I would have found it hard to believe.  Here is a photo of my empty bag!

#34. Memories of Open Window Bakery

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 The 34th bread in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge is Pumpernickel Bread.  I just love saying “Pumpernickel”. The word always makes me smile .  It makes me remember Saturday night dinners when I was growing up.  We would have sliced Pumpernickel Bread from Open Window Bakery (in Toronto),  creamed cottage cheese and several different types of smoked fish (which I never would eat).  My mom would have a big platter of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, a bowl of tuna salad and sliced cantelope.  I would eat one slice of pumpernickel with tuna, cucumber and tomato and a second with creamed cottage cheese and jam.  Sometimes she would get the Pumpernickel rye rolls which I really loved.  Oh my!! I haven’t thought of those pumpernickel rolls in years.  I just did a google search to see if they still make them and YES, they do.  They also make a light rye roll that is killer with butter and jam.  Here is a picture of both of them. 

I just want to get in that car right now and drive to Toronto to buy some.  But it’s a 4 1/2 hour drive from Ottawa and probably by the time I got there my craving would be gone, or possibly, even worse, I’d eat too many and go into a bread coma. 

Peter Reinhart’s pumpernickel bread begins with a rye starter, made up of some of my sourdough starter, pumpernickel grind rye flour flour and water.  This is mixed up and left out on the counter for several hours until bubbly.  Then into the fridge for an overnight rest.  The addition of the rye flour to the starter creates an acidic environment which helps to make the final bread more flavourful and more easily digested.

One of the ingredients called for in this recipe is bread crumbs made from rye bread.  Kind of an unusual thing to add to a bread dough.  Peter Reinhart promised that it adds wonderful texture to the final bread.  I had some rye bread in the freezer so I defrosted a few slices and put them into the food processor to produce rye bread crumbs.

Next all the dry ingredients are dumped into a big bowl.  These include clear flour, brown sugar, caramel powder, salt, instant yeast and rye bread crumbs.  In case you were wondering, clear flour is not transparent flour.  This is the flour that clears the first sifting (to separate out the bran and germ), still retains some of the finer bran fiber from the outer endosperm of the wheat berry and is thus coarser and contains higher levels of ash. This is the flour New York City bakers have always used for their signature Jewish-style rye breads.   The caramel powder gives the bread it’s dark brown characteristic colour.  It looks a bit like like instant coffee granules.

The rye starter, vegetable oil and water are added to the dry ingredients and mixed up to make a tacky but not sticky dough.  As with all doughs that contain rye flour, great care has to be taken not to overmix or else the dough will get gummy.  The dough was dumped out of the bowl onto the counter and then hand kneaded for about 5 minutes until the dough was smooth and supple.

After that the dough is left to rest in an oiled container for about 2 hours until doubled in size.

Once the dough is doubled, it is divided in half and formed into 2 boules.  They are covered and left for about 90 minutes for the final proofing. 

 Then I scored them.  I think I got the timing just perfect for the scoring as there was almost no drag to the lame (scoring tool).  It was very smooth!

  Into a hot oven they went.  I baked them on a preheated baking stone and had a pan of water below the breads to create steam in the oven.   

Fresh out of the oven:

We had the bread for dinner that night.  I have to admit that while the flavour was great, the texture was not what I was expecting.  It was a little light and fluffy.  I was hoping for a denser, chewier bread, like what I remember from my childhood. Looks like a trip to Toronto is in order!

32. 100% Sourdough Rye

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I KNOW THAT WHEN YOU ARE SHOUTING ONLINE YOU TYPE ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS.   How do you whisper online?  I need to know because what I’m about to say should be whispered.  “I loved this bread!”  I am whispering it because I am afraid I may be drummed out of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge.

Most of my bread freak friends who have already made this bread absolutely hated it.  Many of them threw it out.  Some turned it into croutons and others into breadcrumbs. Someone (I won’t mention any names) called it play-doh with caraway seeds.  The main complaint was that it was way too dense and chewy.  This is precisely why I loved it.  This was no spineless bread.  It had guts and personality and wonderful flavour.

The last rye bread we made (New York Deli Rye) was about 1/3 rye flour and 2/3 white bread flour so it had a mild rye flavour.  This bread was 100% rye flour.  The thing you need to know about rye flour is that it contains pentosan, a gum protein that causes the dough to become gummy if mixed for too long.  Extra care has to be taken with kneading this bread.  Rye flour has a very low gluten content so we are warned that a 100% rye bread will not have the same soft and high crumb that a bread made with wheat flour will have.

The bread begins with mixing about 1/2 a cup of Phyl (my starter) with rye flour and water.  It is just mixed until all the flour is hydrated.  No need for it to be smooth.  Then this is left on the counter until it doubles in size and this put in the fridge for an overnight rest.

You also prepare a “soaker”.  This is a mixture of pumpernickel grind flour and water.  it is covered and left out on the counter all night.

 The next day the soaker, the starter, white rye flour, salt, caraway seeds and water are mixed for about 6 minutes to form the dough.  Then the dough is put into an oiled glass container, covered and left to rise for almost 4 hours, until it doubles in size.  Usually this step takes about 1-2 hours.  The longer rising time is due to the lower gluten content in rye flour.

After the dough has doubled, it is gently divided into 2 pieces and then formed into batards (oval shapes).  Since it was quite late by this point, I covered the loaves and refrigerated them overnight.  The next morning  I took them out of the fridge and let them sit on the counter for about 4 hours, covered with plastic wrap.  You can see that they expanded widthwise, but not very much in height.

 Then they were scored and baked in a very hot oven.

Indeed the crumb on this bread is not very open, quite dense.  And true, the bread did not rise very much, so my loaves were quite flat.  But I loved the true rye flavour of this bread and the chewy texture.

The bread was great with Le Blackburn cheese, grapes and a glass of Syrah wine.  I had it again this morning toasted for breakfast and loved it even more.

31. New York Deli Rye

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“New York Deli Rye“.  Those very words conjure up some pretty powerful images.  For Peter Reinhart, author of  The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, those words bring back the childhood memory of having to make that agonizing decision on visits to Hymie’s Deli; would it be a roast beef, schmaltz  and onion sandwich or a corned beef,  coleslaw and russian dressing sandwich?  But always on onion rye!  Oh, such decisions. 

For me, the memory does not involve rye bread at all.  I know, sacrilege to deli lovers everywhere and I apologize.  My starch of choice was potato chips.  I’d wrap the  pastrami slices around a great big potato chip.  The folded chips were the best.  (We called those wish chips)  Okay, all you cardiologists out there please don’t comment on this post warning me about impending heart disease.  I do not indulge in this on a regular basis any more, but every once in a while…

 

 

Bread # 31 in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge is New York Deli Rye.  The version in the book adds sauteed onions to the dough.  This seemed kind of strange to me.  (I know. … This coming from a woman who wraps her deli meat around potato chips).  I guess it just seems odd because I love rye bread best for breakfast, toasted with salted butter and American Spoon sour cherry preserves.  I ate this for breakfast every day for 2 entire years.  I tend to do that.  These days it’s Oat Squares cereal, with a handful of Fibre First on top and a sliced banana.  I’m just a wild and crazy girl!  All this to say, I decided to leave out the sauteed onions.

This bread is a two day affair.  I was thrilled because I got to use my sourdough starter “Phyl” again in this recipe.  I mixed 1 cup of Phyl with white rye flour and water and it sit on the counter for about 3 hours until bubbly.  Then into the fridge it went for an overnight rest.  The next day the starter is mixed with the rest of the ingredients (bread flour, rye flour, brown sugar, salt, yeast, caraway seeds, buttermilk and vegetable oil). 

Rye flour has a very low gluten content (6-8%) as compared to regular bread flour (12%).  What this means is that you have to be careful and not knead this bread for too long or else the dough becomes very gummy.  I kneaded it by hand for about 6 minutes.  A regular wheat dough recipe normally requires 12 minutes of kneading.  I ended up with a beautiful supple dough.

After the dough rests and doubles in size, it’s time to form the loaves.  This bread could be formed into sandwich loaves and baked in a loaf pan but to me, rye bread should be an oval free form loaf.  So I shaped mine into batards (torpedo shape) so I would have a nice oval rye loaves.  Here’s a video of me forming the dough into batards.  Since no one was home at the time, I managed to figure out how to mount the camera onto a tripod as shaping batards takes 2 hands.  Another new skill mastered!

After about 90 minutes they have grown to about 1 1/2 times their original size and it’s time to slash.  Like this:

And like this: (I think I’m finally getting the hang of this!)

I brushed the loaves with beaten egg white to ensure a shiny finish.  I was not disappointed.  These were some gorgeous burnished loaves.

Slicing into the loaves revealed a fairly tight crumb with just enough holes to make me happy.

 This rye bread made excellent pastrami and dill pickle sandwiches and I threw in a few potato chips for old times sake.

 

Check out what some of my fellow Bread Freak friends thought of this bread:

Oggi of “I can do that” loved the flavour and chew of this bread.

Sally of “Bewitching Kitchen” was surprised at how much she liked this one.

Mags of “The Other Side of 50” made adorable bread bowls.

Paul of “Yumarama” changed things up a bit and used some dark rye flour.

Katya of “Bread Babes” baked her rye in a clay baker.