I had another one of those days with enough time to play in the dough while turning up one of my outside garden areas!
I had purchased some rye flower that needed to be used up so I flipped through the Modern Baker cookbook and settled in on the french rye.
I substituted some wheat for some of the unbleached flour in the first sponge and added a tablespoon of molassas.
I also played with the loaves a little.
I am heading to a friends house tomorrow to pressure can some of my Mom's German Potato Salad dressing( I have never pressured canned before, so she is teaching me, and I am doing the dressing because it is something distinctly "family" and I am hoping to be able to give it as gifts.)
I used some of the dough to wrap some cheddarwurst to snack on while we play in the kitchen.
The recipie calls for making a sponge the night before. I Made it first thing early in the morning and it was none the less for it!
The intense yeast smell that filled the house all day was utopia to me!
I doubled the called for ingredients and again it still worked out perfectly!
Each loaf weighed in at a pound raw.
I do want to note though that I did change two things. I added steam to the bake for a nice chewy crust and after the first braided loaf baked I kicked up the oven temp to 400 to give more color to the crust for the batards.
I look forward to some pastrami and cream cheese on these!
For exacting details please refer to the cookbook, again there is a lot of information within each recipie, but again I found a wonderfully inviting loaf of bread to enjoy making!
Pain de Seigle
Sponge:
1 tespoon dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 cup unbleached flour
Rye Dough:
1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast
1 cup warm water
Sponge:
1 1/4 cups medium or whole-grain rye flour( I used dark rye)
3/4 cup unbleached AP flour( I used regular AP flour)
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
After you prepare the first sponge. Allow it to feed overnight stiring it down on occassion and keep it covered with plastic so it does not dry.
When you are ready to prepare the dough whisk the second yeast and water together in your mixer and add the sponge and stir until smooth.
Next stir in the rye flour in 3 seperate additions stiring the dough smooth after each addition add the AP flour and the salt and continue to stir until the dough is evenly moist and there are no dry spots.
Place bowl on mixer with your dough hook and mix on low for 3 minutes. Scrap the sides fo the bowl and allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes.
Mix the dough once more for 3 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Scrape the dough into a oiled bowl and turn so that the top is oiled. cover and allow to rise till doubled( mine took 1 hour) but the recipie calls for up to 2 hours.
Scrape the dough onto your working surface, devide and roll into loaves.
Arrange your loaves onto your baking pans cover and allow to rise for about 45 minutes. The recipie states it does not have to double, just puff, but for my batards I allowed it to double.
Preheat oven to 375 and bake your loaves in the middle of your oven until well risen and firm to the touch, about 35 minutes. Cool on racks.
The flavor is outstanding! Nice Chewy crust and tender middle!
Another keeper!
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Comments: 15
I did my first pressure canning today Ellie. I had fun learning something new. MAN, baking when you want...even I have a hard time doing that..but I had gotten tired of buying store bread this last week.....so I just had to..and it kept me from trying to plant my freshly turned garden areas!
I am going to try this one. I actually have steamed pastrami on my menu, and will be making the rye from scratch.
Not sure if I want to do German or this one though. I am sure my family would prefer German style.
so today I am playing with basket weaving....and have turkey drummettes marinating....
it finally turned off sunny.....woo hoo
you might also try processing some rolled oats or adding some rice flour...
and I prefer to do a real slow proof on whole wheat at room temp so the gluten strands expand slowlyand dont get cut by the rough edges of the wheat germ
to simplify things....basically you can take almost ANY plain old white bread recipie and sub any combination of flours and grains you wish..just open your mind to various end results
also..you can sub water eggs and milk for each other...they all weigh the same...you might now want to do ALL egg or all milk but if you want to play with the sugar or color or richness of a bread you can do so with this hint...
to me it is the feel of the dough that will tell you what kind of bread you are going to get
the trick to understanding gluten developement in a simple way is to think of bubble gum.... as you are mixing pull asmall piece out and gently stretch it and keep stretching it....undeveloped gluten or a whole grain will not stretch out thin like bubble gum that is being blown into a bubble...but the thiner you can get it to stretch before it breaks will tell you how soft your loaf may be or how it will rise....
and sometimes a slow rise will give you a more stable rise to your whole grains....
sometimes wheat will rise up and get all soft in a regular proof...then when you bake it it deflates and gets a hard crust and or will be heavy( bad heavy) not on purpose hardy loaf heavy