Sourdough Rye & Cranberry Loaf

The Bread of the Month (BOM) for the Artisan Bread Bakers is Sourdough Rye with Raisins and Cranberries.

David, the host for the Artisan Bread Bakers for September, described the bread as, “… a wonderful bread for this time of year, delightful on its own, with a pleasant chew, a tender crumb and a nice crust! You will find it rather joyful!”

 

Unfortunately, the first time I made this bread, the experience wasn’t very joyful. It was a flop!  The dough fermented too long, the loaf didn’t rise very well in the oven and the inside was gummy (see photo below). Needless to say, I was pretty bummed about it. I had decided to move on, but it kept beckoning me to give it another chance.

 

I waited a couple of weeks and tried it again after I got my new kitchen floor. This time, the loaf came out singing and so did I. I took a peek in the oven while it was baking. It was rising beautifully so I did a little gig and said, “That’s what I’m talking about!”

 

The issue with the first loaf was mostly due to timing. I was trying to get things ready before I got my new flooring installed. I was baking in between moving things out of the way. I ran out of time so I let the dough ferment in the refrigerator twice. It didn’t take too kindly to that. I also think my rye sourdough was a bit lazy, but that was not it’s fault.

I gave it some motivation the second time around by adding a little instant yeast. I wanted to make the bread without the added yeast, but this loaf performed better with a little help from a friend – the yeast.

I had a ball baking this bread on my new kitchen floor. Well, I didn’t bake it on the floor, but I stood on the floor and danced around while I was preparing the bread.  All the rooms downstairs have bamboo flooring now so I have a huge dance floor to practice on. I’m loving it!

 

Sourdough Rye with Cranberries & Walnuts

Makes: 1 loaf

I ran out of raisins, so for my second attempt at making this bread, I only used dried cranberries. I really like the flavor with just the cranberries and the walnuts.

The Build:

• 4.8 oz whole rye flour
• 3.85 oz water
• 1 tablespoon mature rye sourdough culture
  

The Soaker:

• 2 oz dried cranberries
• Enough warm water to cover
  

Final Dough:

• All the build
• 10.4 oz bread flour
• 0.8 oz rye flour
• 7 oz water
• 0.3 oz salt
• 1 teaspoon yeast
• All of soaker
• 1.4 oz (1/3 cup) Walnuts, toasted (or not)

 

Method:

1. Prepare the build 14-16 hours prior to baking.

2. Prepare the soaker 30 minutes before mixing the dough.

After about twenty minutes, drain the soaker. Save the water to use in the bread for extra flavor. Just subtract the amount of soaker water from the total water to get a total of 7 ounces.

 

3. Combine the build and water in the mixing bowl and stir for about twenty seconds.  Isn’t the water a pretty color!

 

4. Add the flour, salt, yeast, and mix on first speed for three minutes and then on second speed for two minutes. Add the drained soaker and mix on first speed until combined.

5. Let the dough bulk ferment for one hour.

6. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. with a baking stone on the middle rack and a steam pan underneath.

Shape the dough into a round or batard and proof for forty five minutes or until ready to bake, depending on the room temperature. I shaped my loaf into a batard and placed it on parchment paper sprinkled with cornmeal to proof.  The batard shape is one of my favorites.

 

7. Score the batard down the middle using a lame or serrated knife. If you’re making a round loaf, score it in the pattern of your choice.

 

8. Slide the loaf (on the parchment paper) onto the preheated baking stone and fill the steam pan with 1 cup of hot water. Spritz the oven with water several times at 30 second intervals to create steam. Bake the loaf at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove the parchment paper, rotate the loaf, and reduce the oven to 425 degrees. Continue baking until the loaf is done, about 20-30 more minutes.

9. Cool the loaf on a wire rack.

10. Slice and enjoy!

No gumminess here. Just a beautiful and delicious loaf that tastes great with almond butter or regular butter.

 

Happy Baking!

Cathy

Sourdough Rye and Weekend Baking

I enjoyed my bread-baking weekend last weekend. Although I’ve been baking all month, I hadn’t made any new breads. I was starting to go through bread-baking withdrawals so I made up for lost time. I made four loaves and a batch of dinner rolls. I also messed up almost every mixing bowl in the house, but it was worth it.

The first loaf I made was is French Bread with Apples and Walnuts.

The second bread, and the one featured in this post, is a Sourdough Rye made with toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds. I’m a little behind on my posting, but this bread is worth the wait.

 

This rye bread is the featured BOM (Bread of the Month) for November for the Artisan Bread Bakers Facebook group. David of Hearth Baked Tunes, one of the administrators of the group, adapted it from one of the breads in Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hammelman.

I decided to work on my photography skills while I was making this bread.  I’m a bread baker not a photographer so I need all the practice I can get. I took about 250 photos of this bread while I was making it. I was really pleased with several of the photos so they’ve been floating around the web in anticipation of this post.

Here’s one of my favorite photos of this bread. The lighting is horrendous in my kitchen so I took this photo on top of my new cooktop. It looks kind of surreal but it is a real photo of real bread.

 

Sourdough Rye with Toasted Pumpkin and Sunflower Seeds

You can access the formula on the Artisan Bread Bakers FB group page.

Makes: 2 large round or oval loaves or 3 batard-shaped loaves

Instructions:

I started the process for making this bread on Friday. The first thing you do is to mix the sourdough using a rye culture, whole rye flour and water.  My rye sourdough starter needed to be fed so that was the first thing I did.  I let it sit for several hours, then I continued with the rest of the process.

Day 1: Prepare the Sourdough:

Prepare the sourdough and let it sit for 14-16 hours at 70 degrees F. I used an all rye sourdough made with a rye levain (also referred to as a rye culture or starter) and whole grain rye flour milled from organic rye grains.

If you don’t have a rye sourdough starter, you have a few options:

• Use a regular sourdough starter
• Convert a regular sourdough starter to a rye sourdough
• Create a rye levain/sourdough starter from scratch

 

Day 1: Prepare the Soaker:

I made a few substitutions to David’s adapted formula because I didn’t have the suggested ingredients. For the soaker, I substituted rye flakes for the rye chops. I created the soaker at the same time as the sourdough and let it sit overnight.

 

Day 2: Making the Bread

The next day, when you are ready to make the bread:

Toast the seeds:

I didn’t have the amount of pumpkin seeds that the formula called for so I used what I had and added more sunflower seeds. I just made sure the combined weight was equal to the amount called for.

This was fun!  As the seeds are toasting, they crack in the pan. I know, it’s the little things…

 

Mix the Dough:

For the final dough, I used powdered malt extract for the malt syrup, and all-purpose flour for the bread flour because I ran out of bread flour. If you don’t have malt extract or syrup, you can use honey.

Just mix all of the ingredients together, including the sourdough and soaker. I used less water in the final dough because I had used a little more water in my rye soaker.  You can adjust the amount of hydration while you’re mixing the dough.  If it needs more hydration, add a little more water, if it’s too wet, add some more flour.

 

Bulk Fermentation:

Let the dough ferment for 1 hour, no folding necessary per the original formula.  Well, here is where I deviated again.  I ran out of time and energy Saturday night, so at this point, I placed the bowl (covered with plastic) in the refrigerator overnight.

 

Diving and Shaping the Dough:

The next day, I took the dough out of the refrigerator and let it warm up to room temperature (about 2 hours).  Then I proceeded with the next step.

Remove the dough from the bowl and divide it into three pieces using a sharp knife or a bench tool.

 

Shape the dough pieces into batards. This is really an easy process and doesn’t have to take very long. Begin by spreading the dough out into a rough triangle. Don’t worry about shaping a perfect rectangle, just make it an even thickness if you can.

 

Fold the bottom third up and press gently on the seam to seal it, then bring the top to the middle like you are folding a letter.

 

Using the heel of your hand, press gently on the seam to seal it.

 

Place the loaves, seamside down on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cover with plastic, and allow to proof for 50 to 60 minutes.

 

Score the Loaves:

Using a serrated knife or lame, score the loaves. 

 

Baking the Loaves:

Bake the loaves in a preheated 450 degrees F. oven on a baking stone with a steam pan underneath. Bake the loaves for 15 minutes and then lower the temperature to 425 and continue baking for 30 minutes or until the loaves are completely baked.

Cooling the Loaves:

Remove the loaves to a cooling rack and cool completely before serving

 

Here are the finished loaves. I really liked the flavor and the texture of this bread.

I’m submitting this bread to YeastSpotting, the weekly bread roundup hosted by Susan of Wild Yeast.

Thanks to David of Hearth Baked Tunes for sharing this formula with us.

 

Happy Baking!

Cathy

Hutzelbrot with Dried Fruit

In my previous post on 66 Percent Sourdough Rye, I mentioned that I would be making a unique Christmas Bread using leftover bread cubes. Here it is!  It’s called Hutzelbrot. 

 

Hutzelbrot is a dense, freestanding bread served in Germany usually during Christmastime. It contains dried fruit, but no sugar. This version utilizes a mash of wheat and rye flours combined with an altus made with bread cubes from the 66 Percent Sourdough Rye bread. It also utilizes a starter made from a whole wheat or rye mother starter.  I used my newly converted sourdough rye starter. It worked really well.

Another neat thing about this bread is the scoring. The bread is topped with a crunchy coating and then scored in the shape of a feather or wheat pattern. This was my first try at making Hutzelbrot so I still need to perfect the scoring, but the rice flour coating and slashes did make for a unique-looking bread.  The flavor is unique as well. 

 

Hutzelbrot with Dried Fruit

Makes: 2 Loaves

Days to Make: 2

Adapted from: Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor

Ingredients:

Mash:

• 10.6 oz; 300 g; or 1 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
• 2.25 oz; 64 g; or 1/2 cup whole rye meal or rye flour, preferably coarse grind
• 2.25 oz; 64 g; or 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• .03 oz; 1 g; or 1/2 teaspoon diastatic malt powder or sprouted wheat flour (optional)
• 6 oz; 170 g altus (use all); * see Making the Altus (soaked bread)

Starter:

• 2.5 oz; 71 g; or 1/3 cup; whole wheat or rye mother starter
• 7.5 oz; 213 g; or 1 2/3 cups whole rye flour
• 6 oz; 170 g; or 3/4 cup filtered spring water, at room temperature

Final Dough:

• 16 oz; 454 g; use all of the starter
• 14 oz; 397 g; use all of the mash
• 3.5 oz; 99 g; 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 3.5 oz; 99 g; 3/4 cup whole rye flour
• 6 oz; 170 g; 1 cup dried fruit (citron, apricots, figs, plums, cherries, cranberries, golden raisins) I used dried cranberries.
• .5 oz; 14 g; 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
• .25 oz; 7 g; 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
• .5 oz; 14 g; 1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder (optional)
• extra whole wheat or whole rye flour for adjustments
• Flour paste ** see Making the Flour Paste

 

Directions:

1) Making the Altus (soaked bread):

Cover 1 cup of 1/2-inch bread cubes, crusts on, with just enough hot water to saturate and soften them, about 1/2 cup.  Rye bread is preferable; however, you can substitute whole wheat. Let the altus sit at room temperature for a minimum of 4 hours, or overnight. I let it sit for 4-5 hours. You can use toasted or dried bread as well, but you will need to add more water. When you are ready to add the altus to the dough, squeeze out the excess water.

 

2) Creating the Mash:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F. Heat the water to 165 degrees F (74 degrees C) in an overproof saucepan (I used a casserole dish), then remove the pan from the heat and whisk or stir in the rye flour, whole wheat flour, and malt until the flour is fully hydrated and makes a paste similar to a thin pudding or gravy.

Using a spatula or plastic scraper dipped in water, scrape the spoon or whisk and the walls of the pan to get all of the dough back into the pan and off the inside walls.  Immediately cover the pan with its lid or aluminum foil and place it in the oven.

Turn the oven down to warm/150 degrees F (66 degrees C), if it has this setting, and leave the mash in the oven for a least 1 hour and up to 3 hours.  I left it in the oven for 3 hours while the altus was sitting at room temperature.

After 3 hours, stir in the soaked bread and refrigerate the mash until you are ready to use it. 

 

Or, you can leave it out overnight at room temperature if you plan to use it within the next 24 hours. This is what I did.

 

3) Creating the Starter:

Mix all of the starter ingredients together in a bowl to form a ball of dough. I usually add the water to the culture first, then I mix in the rye flour.

 

Using wet hands, knead the dough in the bowl for about 2 minutes to be sure all of the ingredients are evenly distributed and the flour is fully hydrated.  The dough should feel very tacky.  Let the dough rest for about 5 minutes, then knead it again with wet hands for 1 minute.  The dough will become somewhat smoother but will still be tacky.

 

Transfer the dough to a clean bowl, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and leave at room temperature for approximately 4 to 6 hours, until the dough is nearly double in size.  The dough should have a pleasant aroma similar to apple cider vinegar.  If the starter has not doubled, allow it to continue to develop at room temperature.  It could take up to 8 hours or longer.

 

When the starter is fully developed, knead it for a few seconds to degas it.  The starter is now ready for mixing into the final dough; however, if necessary to coordinate timing with the mash, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (or up to 3 days).  About 2 hours before mixing the final dough, remove the starter from the refrigerator to take off the chill.

 

4) Mixing the Final Dough:

Using a metal pastry scraper, chop the starter into 12 smaller pieces (sprinkle some of the extra flour over the pre-dough to keep the pieces from sticking back to each other). 

 

Put the starter pieces and mash in the bowl along with the whole wheat and rye flours, dried fruit, salt, yeast, and cocoa.  Mix on slow speed for 1 minute to bring the ingredients together into a ball. Increase the speed to medium-low and continue mixing, occasionally scraping down the bowl, for 2 to 3 minutes, until the ingredients become cohesive and assimilated into each other. Add some extra flour or more water as needed until the dough is soft and slightly sticky.

 

Dust a work surface with flour, then roll the dough in the flour to coat.  Knead the dough by hand for 3 to 4 minutes, incorporating only as much extra flour as needed, until the dough feels soft and only slightly sticky.  Form the dough into a ball and let it rest on the work surface for 5 minutes.

 

Continue kneading the dough for 1 minute to strengthen the gluten and make any final flour or water adjustments.  I added more whole wheat flour.  The dough should feel soft, malleable, and very tacky but no longer sticky.  Form the dough into a ball and place it in a clean oiled bowl.  Roll to coat the dough with oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for approximately 60 minutes, until it is at least 1 1/2 times its original size.

 

5) Shaping the Loaves:

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and form it into 2 batards. 

Begin by dividing the dough into two equal pieces (about 1.5 pounds each) and shape the pieces into boules.  Cover and let them rest on the counter for 15 minutes. 

 

Gently pat a dough ball into a rough rectangle.  Fold the bottom third of dough, letter style, up to the center and press to seal, creating surface tension on the outer edge. Fold the remaining dough over the top and use the edge of your hand to seal the seam closed and to increase the surface tension all over.

 

Form the other loaf the same way, then transfer the batards to a parchment-lined baking sheet (or a silicon mat) and dust with rye or wheat flour.

 

Mist the top of the loaves with pan spray (optional) or dust with flour, cover loosely with plastic wrap or a cloth towel, and let rise at room temperature for approximately 45 to 60 minutes, until 1 1/2 times their original size.

 

6) Making the Flour Paste:

When the dough is ready to bake, brush it with flour paste. The flour paste is made by mixing 1 cup flour with just enough water to make a thin paste. You can use rye flour, rice flour, cornstarch, or any low-gluten flour. I used 1/2 cup of rice flour and mixed it with Spring water until it became a thin paste.

 

Use a pastry brush to brush the paste on the loaves.

 

7) Preparing the Oven for Steam Baking:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. (218 degrees C) and prepare it for hearth baking by placing a baking stone on the middle rack and a steam pan underneath.

 

8) Scoring the Loaves:

Score the loaves in a feather, or wheat, pattern. First, use a sharp knife or blade to cut a 1/2-inch deep, horseshoe-shaped border around the top of the loaf.  Next, score a 4-inch, slightly doglegged inside line with 4 feather cuts emanating off of each side. 

 

Finally, make a deeper cut at the top end of the dogleg.  For this cut, use scissors and cut straight down in order to create a deeper and wider space.

 

9) Baking the Loaves:

Place the loaves in the preheated oven, pour 1 cup of hot water into the steam pan, then lower the temperature to 375 degrees F. (191 degrees C), and bake for 25 minutes. Rotate the loaves 180 degrees and continue baking for another 20 to 35 minutes, until the loaves are a rich brown, sound hollow when thumped on the bottom, and register at least 200 degrees F. (93 degrees C) in the center.

 

10) Cooling and Slicing the Loaves:

Remove the loaves to a wire rack to cool. I let the loaves rest for 24 hours before slicing.

 

I really like this bread!  I’ve been enjoying it with cheese. It’s a dense bread but it has a wonderful flavor.

 

This bread has been YeastSpotted. Please visit Wild Yeast to view all of the lovely breads in the weekly roundup.

 

Merry Christmas from The Bread Experience!

Developing a Sourdough Rye Starter

Since I’m focusing on Sourdough this month, I decided now would be a good time to revive and repurpose two of the sourdough starters that I’ve been neglecting.

I’ve been using my Apple Starter exclusively for the past several months and hadn’t even fed the other two starters. They were begging for my attention. So I gave it to them.

My first experiment was to convert the starter we created in the BBA Challenge to a sourdough rye starter. The BBA Starter was a mature starter that I created in 2009; it just wasn’t active at the moment. Rather than getting rid of it, I wanted to bring it back to life and convert it completely to a rye starter. The BBA Starter was originally created with a portion of rye flour so it seemed like a natural progression to convert it to a sourdough rye.

 

Developing a Sourdough Rye culture

Adapted from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman

Day One: Initial Mix

If you are making the starter from scratch, for the initial mix, use 450 grams or 6.4 oz (1 3/4 cups) of whole rye flour and 450 grams or 6.4 oz (3/4 cup) of water. Mix the ingredients to a smooth paste, cover with plastic, and let it stand in a warm place (75 to 80 degrees F.) for 24 hours.

 

Day Two: One Feeding

I already had a mature starter so I began the process of converting it to a sourdough rye at this point.

 

I took 3.2 oz of my mature starter, 3.2 oz (7/8 cup) whole rye flour, and 3.2 oz (3/8 cup) Spring water and mixed the ingredients until they formed a smooth paste.  Then I covered the bowl with plastic, and let it stand in a warm are (75 to 80 degrees F.) for 24 hours.

 

Days Three, Four, Five, and Six:  Two Feedings

Take 3.2 oz of the initial mix (one-third of above) and mix it with 3.2 oz (3/8 cup) of Spring water to break it up.  I use Spring water because tap water has chorine in it.  If you want to use tap water, leave it out overnight to remove the chorine. 

 

Add 3.2 oz (7/8 cup) whole rye flour and mix until it forms a smooth paste, cover it with plastic, and let it stand in a warm place (75 to 80 degrees F.) for 12 hours.

 

Repeat the feedings every 12 hours for 4 days. The culture can be used to make bread on the 7th day, but will develop better flavor if you continue the feedings for 2 to 3 more days.

 

My next experiment was to convert my first starter to a stiff levain cuture. I’ll tell you more about that in a different post.

Now, I have three different types of starters, a liquid levain, a stiff levain and a sourdough rye starter. You don’t necessarily need three different starters; I just wanted to go through the process to document how it worked. It was fun.

 

Thanks for visiting The Bread Experience bread baking blog.  Be sure to check back to find out what bread I made using bread crumbs from the 66 Percent Sourdough Rye Bread and my newly converted sourdough rye culture.

 

Happy Baking!

Cathy